[{"_1":2,"_3":-5,"_4":-5},"loaderData",{"_5":6,"_7":8},"actionData","errors","root",{"_139":-5,"_140":-5,"_141":142,"_143":144,"_145":146},"routes/clips.$id.$slug",{"_9":10,"_11":12},"clip",{"_13":14,"_15":16,"_17":-5,"_18":19,"_20":-5,"_21":22,"_23":24,"_25":26,"_27":28,"_29":30,"_31":32,"_33":34,"_35":36,"_37":38,"_39":40,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_44":45,"_46":-5,"_47":48,"_49":50,"_51":-5},"canonicalUrl","https://howleaderslead.com/clips/2780/transformation-starts-with-conversation-and-execution","id",2780,"title","Transformation starts with conversation and execution","subtitle","transcript","WEBVTT\n\n1\n00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.160\nSo you're right, we bought companies that had nothing to do with each other\n\n2\n00:00:02.160 --> 00:00:04.640\nsometimes.\n\n3\n00:00:04.640 --> 00:00:06.640\nAll cultures are very different.\n\n4\n00:00:06.640 --> 00:00:11.560\nSo the first thing I did was literally would sit down with the management team\n\n5\n00:00:11.560 --> 00:00:12.560\nlike dinner,\n\n6\n00:00:12.560 --> 00:00:13.560\nget to know them.\n\n7\n00:00:13.560 --> 00:00:14.560\nWhat do you read?\n\n8\n00:00:14.560 --> 00:00:15.560\nWhat do you look at?\n\n9\n00:00:15.560 --> 00:00:16.560\nHow do you run your joint?\n\n10\n00:00:16.560 --> 00:00:17.560\nWhat reports do you have?\n\n11\n00:00:17.560 --> 00:00:21.010\nLike, what do you, what do you, what do you, and you can see instantly that a\n\n12\n00:00:21.010 --> 00:00:21.640\nlot of people\n\n13\n00:00:21.640 --> 00:00:24.240\nstep up right away and they want to build a great company.\n\n14\n00:00:24.240 --> 00:00:25.240\nThey tell you what's wrong.\n\n15\n00:00:25.240 --> 00:00:27.520\nAnd a lot of people, they defend themselves.\n\n16\n00:00:27.520 --> 00:00:29.720\nThey, they're black.\n\n17\n00:00:29.720 --> 00:00:31.720\nThey, they won't look at the numbers the right way.\n\n18\n00:00:31.720 --> 00:00:34.180\nThey look at them the way that makes them look better, which of course is, you\n\n19\n00:00:34.180 --> 00:00:34.440\nknow, is\n\n20\n00:00:34.440 --> 00:00:38.440\na disaster for any business and who's open.\n\n21\n00:00:38.440 --> 00:00:40.720\nBut the first thing is walk in their shoes.\n\n22\n00:00:40.720 --> 00:00:42.560\nSo and go to the belly of the beast.\n\n23\n00:00:42.560 --> 00:00:46.070\nSo when I remember travelers, the insurance company, I went to go get to know\n\n24\n00:00:46.070 --> 00:00:46.360\nall the\n\n25\n00:00:46.360 --> 00:00:48.520\nactuaries and all the underwriters.\n\n26\n00:00:48.520 --> 00:00:52.220\nYou know, when we, when we bought Simon Brothers, I put an office on the\n\n27\n00:00:52.220 --> 00:00:53.120\ntrading floor, the\n\n28\n00:00:53.120 --> 00:00:56.160\nfixed income train for the belly of the beast right there.\n\n29\n00:00:56.160 --> 00:00:57.160\nThey were shocked.\n\n30\n00:00:57.160 --> 00:01:00.440\nI started going through all their trades and all their positions and take them\n\n31\n00:01:00.440 --> 00:01:01.520\nto dinner.\n\n32\n00:01:01.520 --> 00:01:04.040\nAnd, and then, and then start fixing it.\n\n33\n00:01:04.040 --> 00:01:07.200\nI never, and we never, I'm looking back.\n\n34\n00:01:07.200 --> 00:01:09.560\nWe never said we're going to do a transformation.\n\n35\n00:01:09.560 --> 00:01:14.000\nWe just sat down with the business heads and, and, and said, what do you do?\n\n36\n00:01:14.000 --> 00:01:15.000\nWhat are you doing?\n\n37\n00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:16.000\nWhat are we going to build?\n\n38\n00:01:16.000 --> 00:01:17.000\nWhat are you going to grow?\n\n39\n00:01:17.000 --> 00:01:18.000\nHow come we're not going to sales force?\n\n40\n00:01:18.000 --> 00:01:19.000\nHow come we're not doing this?\n\n41\n00:01:19.000 --> 00:01:20.000\nHow come this company is doing better?\n\n42\n00:01:20.000 --> 00:01:22.900\nShould we, should we fix the technology or expenses too high, you know, the\n\n43\n00:01:22.900 --> 00:01:23.440\nbureaucracy\n\n44\n00:01:23.440 --> 00:01:24.640\nslowing us down.\n\n45\n00:01:24.640 --> 00:01:26.360\nAnd then, then just start working it, man.\n\n46\n00:01:26.360 --> 00:01:28.600\nIt's over and over and over.\n\n47\n00:01:28.600 --> 00:01:32.670\nAnd, and of course, you know, strategy is important, but execution often is\n\n48\n00:01:32.670 --> 00:01:33.680\nmore important.\n\n49\n00:01:33.680 --> 00:01:38.640\nThey already existing companies that usually were doing something poorly and we\n\n50\n00:01:38.640 --> 00:01:39.200\ngot to buy\n\n51\n00:01:39.200 --> 00:01:42.040\nthem rather cheaply and we basically fixed them.\n\n52\n00:01:42.040 --> 00:01:43.640\nIt doesn't mean we did the best strategy.\n","pretty_transcript","start_time",1560359,"end_time",1661990,"keywords","Turnaround, culture, change, transformation, execution, strategy, acquisition","slug","transformation-starts-with-conversation-and-execution","origin","cms","mux_playback_id","6RCHHGELzmwOwG8R2VSQzxKL6S8z4pD26K3jFzrz4kU","mux_asset_id","AOtFZmt5dfwpyZukoLnaMPpZM21lbH02yI9x2l00ASKXk","leader_id",125,"episode_id",364,"updated_at","2025-02-26T19:56:39.000000Z","meta_title","meta_description","og_image_media_id","web_url","https://www.howleaderslead.com/clips/2780/transformation-starts-with-conversation-and-execution","og_image_url","leader",{"_13":36,"_103":104,"_105":106,"_107":108,"_25":109,"_110":111,"_62":112,"_59":112,"_113":114,"_69":115,"_39":116,"_117":-5,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_118":119,"_91":120,"_44":121,"_122":123,"_124":125,"_46":-5,"_126":127,"_128":129,"_95":130,"_51":-5},"episode",{"_13":38,"_15":52,"_27":53,"_17":54,"_55":56,"_18":57,"_20":58,"_59":60,"_61":-5,"_62":60,"_63":-5,"_64":65,"_66":67,"_68":-5,"_69":-5,"_70":71,"_72":73,"_74":75,"_35":36,"_39":76,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_77":78,"_79":80,"_81":82,"_83":84,"_85":-5,"_86":-5,"_87":88,"_89":90,"_91":-5,"_46":-5,"_92":93,"_94":-5,"_95":-5,"_51":-5},"og_image_media","Get to work","get-to-work","Learn how to prioritize execution instead of getting bogged down by bureaucracy and over-strategizing. Plus, must-hear insights on turnarounds, global trade, and the two qualities that make a leader great.","summary","

Some leaders talk a big game. Others deliver big results. If you want to know what separates the two, listen to this episode with Jamie Dimon, the Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, the largest and most profitable bank in the U.S.

You’ll find a wealth of insight into what it takes to cut through the BS and execute big changes.

Great leaders know: you get results when you get to work. If you want to up the execution level for you and your team, hit play now!

You’ll also learn:

Jamie’s thoughts on the global economy, including China, Russia and more
What really drives curiosity
The two actions that drive a successful turnaround
One warning you need to hear if you’ve recently been promoted

","WEBVTT\n\n1\n00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.670\nA lot of businesses you've seen this, if you have a second rate execution, you\n\n2\n00:00:05.670 --> 00:00:06.240\n're in trouble.\n\n3\n00:00:06.240 --> 00:00:11.040\nIf you have a first rate execution, you can run a pretty good business, whether\n\n4\n00:00:11.040 --> 00:00:11.520\nor not you have a\n\n5\n00:00:11.520 --> 00:00:12.240\nperfect strategy.\n\n6\n00:00:12.240 --> 00:00:25.860\nYou know, some leaders talk a big game. Others, they just deliver big results.\n\n7\n00:00:25.860 --> 00:00:26.480\nIf you want to know\n\n8\n00:00:26.480 --> 00:00:31.360\nwhat separates the two, keep listening. Welcome to How Leaders Lead. I'm David\n\n9\n00:00:31.360 --> 00:00:32.480\nNovak. And every week,\n\n10\n00:00:32.480 --> 00:00:36.560\nI have conversations with the very best leaders in the world to help you become\n\n11\n00:00:36.560 --> 00:00:37.280\nthe best leader\n\n12\n00:00:37.280 --> 00:00:41.610\nthat you can be. My guest today is Jamie Diamond. He hardly needs an\n\n13\n00:00:41.610 --> 00:00:42.480\nintroduction,\n\n14\n00:00:42.480 --> 00:00:48.480\nbut since 2006, Jamie has served as the chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, the\n\n15\n00:00:48.480 --> 00:00:49.440\nlargest and most\n\n16\n00:00:49.440 --> 00:00:54.900\nprofitable bank in the world. And in this conversation, you're going to get the\n\n17\n00:00:54.900 --> 00:00:56.160\nfull Jamie Diamond\n\n18\n00:00:56.160 --> 00:01:01.380\nexperience. He's got so much insight into what it takes to cut through the BS\n\n19\n00:01:01.380 --> 00:01:02.480\nand execute big\n\n20\n00:01:02.480 --> 00:01:07.080\nchanges in your business. I love that about Jamie. He has a real allergy to\n\n21\n00:01:07.080 --> 00:01:08.400\nanything that's going to\n\n22\n00:01:08.400 --> 00:01:13.230\ngum up the works with too much bureaucracy or over-strategizing. The great\n\n23\n00:01:13.230 --> 00:01:14.160\nleaders know,\n\n24\n00:01:14.160 --> 00:01:19.860\nand Jamie knows that for sure that you get results when you get to work. If you\n\n25\n00:01:19.860 --> 00:01:20.880\nwant to cultivate a\n\n26\n00:01:20.880 --> 00:01:25.350\nbias towards action, you're in the right place. Here's my conversation with my\n\n27\n00:01:25.350 --> 00:01:26.160\ngood friend,\n\n28\n00:01:26.160 --> 00:01:36.080\nand soon to be yours, Jamie Diamond. Jamie, you've done a million interviews.\n\n29\n00:01:36.080 --> 00:01:40.320\nI kind of like this one to be a little bit different, maybe even different than\n\n30\n00:01:40.320 --> 00:01:41.200\nanything I've ever\n\n31\n00:01:41.200 --> 00:01:47.230\ndone on this show. But I know you're a master storyteller. Basically, we're\n\n32\n00:01:47.230 --> 00:01:48.240\ngoing to try to share\n\n33\n00:01:48.240 --> 00:01:54.880\nthe stories of your life and the learnings that you had along the way. And I\n\n34\n00:01:54.880 --> 00:01:55.760\nknow it's going to be\n\n35\n00:01:55.760 --> 00:02:00.990\na lot of fun for me because I've been a part of at least a good deal of your\n\n36\n00:02:00.990 --> 00:02:02.560\nbusiness career.\n\n37\n00:02:02.560 --> 00:02:06.400\nI know your father was a stockbroker, and we've talked a little bit about him,\n\n38\n00:02:06.400 --> 00:02:06.960\nbut I've never\n\n39\n00:02:06.960 --> 00:02:11.780\nreally heard you talk a lot about your mother. Could you tell us a story about\n\n40\n00:02:11.780 --> 00:02:12.640\nyour mom and\n\n41\n00:02:14.080 --> 00:02:18.810\na leadership lesson that you picked up from her? Yeah, I mean, I'll do both a\n\n42\n00:02:18.810 --> 00:02:19.120\nlittle bit.\n\n43\n00:02:19.120 --> 00:02:25.330\nMy parents died in 2016. And if you'd asked me before that about credit for\n\n44\n00:02:25.330 --> 00:02:26.320\nwhat you did and how\n\n45\n00:02:26.320 --> 00:02:28.950\nyou grew and stuff like that, I probably didn't talk about a lot. But now I'm\n\n46\n00:02:28.950 --> 00:02:30.000\nlooking back,\n\n47\n00:02:30.000 --> 00:02:35.150\nand you realize that very fundamental values you have come from them. And the\n\n48\n00:02:35.150 --> 00:02:35.680\nvalues are\n\n49\n00:02:35.680 --> 00:02:39.500\npretty basic. And I call them Greek, but they probably were just values that a\n\n50\n00:02:39.500 --> 00:02:42.240\nlot of folks have.\n\n51\n00:02:42.240 --> 00:02:48.480\nOne is you do the best you can. And whatever you do, you do the best you can.\n\n52\n00:02:48.480 --> 00:02:49.440\nIt wasn't about\n\n53\n00:02:49.440 --> 00:02:54.160\nhow you did. It was simply that did you give it your best. The second was you\n\n54\n00:02:54.160 --> 00:02:55.600\ntreat everyone well.\n\n55\n00:02:55.600 --> 00:03:00.640\nIf you mistreated anyone like a waiter or a taxi cab driver, that was\n\n56\n00:03:00.640 --> 00:03:01.440\nunacceptable.\n\n57\n00:03:01.440 --> 00:03:05.850\nAs a code-assil to that, you didn't allow other people to be bullies. It\n\n58\n00:03:05.850 --> 00:03:06.640\nsometimes got\n\n59\n00:03:06.640 --> 00:03:11.410\nyou in trouble a little bit. And the third was do something with your life. But\n\n60\n00:03:11.410 --> 00:03:12.560\nit was about purpose.\n\n61\n00:03:12.560 --> 00:03:15.880\nSo my dad was a stockbroker, but he was much more interested in philosophy than\n\n62\n00:03:15.880 --> 00:03:16.960\nbeing a stockbroker.\n\n63\n00:03:16.960 --> 00:03:23.440\nThe purpose could be so my older brother became a real physicist, an MIT,\n\n64\n00:03:23.440 --> 00:03:27.850\nNew York, Chicago, Nielsberg Institute. My twin brother became an educator. But\n\n65\n00:03:27.850 --> 00:03:28.240\nhe was doing\n\n66\n00:03:28.240 --> 00:03:34.640\nsomething with purpose. Draw your Picasso and make the world a better place\n\n67\n00:03:34.640 --> 00:03:35.280\nthrough that purpose.\n\n68\n00:03:35.280 --> 00:03:38.190\nYou could be art, it could be science, it could be teaching, it could be, it\n\n69\n00:03:38.190 --> 00:03:38.720\ncould be being apparent.\n\n70\n00:03:38.720 --> 00:03:43.760\nIt wasn't anything that just do well and have a purpose. And they were pretty\n\n71\n00:03:43.760 --> 00:03:44.880\nstrict about that.\n\n72\n00:03:44.880 --> 00:03:50.370\nBoth of them. My mom was a Spartan. I say I really mean that. She was a\n\n73\n00:03:50.370 --> 00:03:51.120\nbeautiful woman,\n\n74\n00:03:51.120 --> 00:03:56.970\nbut she was pretty tough. The only time I saw her cry was when J.F. Kennedy got\n\n75\n00:03:56.970 --> 00:03:57.520\nkilled.\n\n76\n00:03:57.520 --> 00:04:02.080\nI got home that day and she was crying. Other than that, not even when we told\n\n77\n00:04:02.080 --> 00:04:02.320\nher she had\n\n78\n00:04:02.320 --> 00:04:10.870\npancreatic cancer. She said I've had a great life. So I would say kind of stoic\n\n79\n00:04:10.870 --> 00:04:10.880\n.\n\n80\n00:04:10.880 --> 00:04:16.010\nShe became very early on in woman's liver. She also went back to college and I\n\n81\n00:04:16.010 --> 00:04:16.880\nwent to college.\n\n82\n00:04:16.880 --> 00:04:21.250\nShe hadn't finished college. She'd gone for a year to a Brooklyn college or\n\n83\n00:04:21.250 --> 00:04:22.320\nsomething like that\n\n84\n00:04:22.320 --> 00:04:27.040\nand then stopped to be a mother. So she always did things like, oh yeah, I'll\n\n85\n00:04:27.040 --> 00:04:27.440\ntell you a quick\n\n86\n00:04:27.440 --> 00:04:32.240\nlittle story about my mother. My mother's, we must be 12 or 13 years old and my\n\n87\n00:04:32.240 --> 00:04:32.800\nparents are having\n\n88\n00:04:32.800 --> 00:04:37.120\na glass of wine in the living room. And my father says to my mother something\n\n89\n00:04:37.120 --> 00:04:37.600\nabout\n\n90\n00:04:37.600 --> 00:04:42.270\nher name was Themis, which means justice in Greek, by the way. I believe the\n\n91\n00:04:42.270 --> 00:04:43.200\ngods of justice\n\n92\n00:04:43.200 --> 00:04:48.480\nand he used the word you're acting hysterical. And I don't remember those books\n\n93\n00:04:48.480 --> 00:04:49.280\nabout the second\n\n94\n00:04:49.280 --> 00:04:55.000\nmystique or the second the second sex. And she said I told you not to say that,\n\n95\n00:04:55.000 --> 00:04:55.600\nTed.\n\n96\n00:04:55.600 --> 00:04:58.740\nHe said, well, when you're acting hysterical, you're acting hysterical. She\n\n97\n00:04:58.740 --> 00:04:59.680\nsaid, I told you not to\n\n98\n00:04:59.680 --> 00:05:04.120\nsay that. And he said it one more time and she walked up to him and took her\n\n99\n00:05:04.120 --> 00:05:05.120\nwine in his face\n\n100\n00:05:05.120 --> 00:05:08.420\nand left the room. And he was in shock. And the three boys, we've never seen\n\n101\n00:05:08.420 --> 00:05:09.520\nanything like that,\n\n102\n00:05:09.520 --> 00:05:14.140\nnot in my house. And now of course, the three of us were like, the revolution\n\n103\n00:05:14.140 --> 00:05:14.960\nis begun because\n\n104\n00:05:14.960 --> 00:05:18.880\nhe was he was the boss. Like just you. And I was like, we're going to overthrow\n\n105\n00:05:18.880 --> 00:05:19.360\nthe king.\n\n106\n00:05:19.920 --> 00:05:25.090\nAnd to his credit, when we all sat down for dinner a little bit later, he came\n\n107\n00:05:25.090 --> 00:05:26.320\nback and said,\n\n108\n00:05:26.320 --> 00:05:30.560\nI just want you all to know your mom was right. So that sounds like the Jamie\n\n109\n00:05:30.560 --> 00:05:31.200\nDiamond I know\n\n110\n00:05:31.200 --> 00:05:34.320\nto say. The other thing about mother, you got to understand, my mother was a\n\n111\n00:05:34.320 --> 00:05:35.920\nwas a was a Freudian.\n\n112\n00:05:35.920 --> 00:05:40.310\nSo my father kind of was, but my father was much was more like us. You know,\n\n113\n00:05:40.310 --> 00:05:41.360\nlike, what did they do?\n\n114\n00:05:41.360 --> 00:05:46.640\nBut she was like, why did they do it? And so it was like, so you've got these\n\n115\n00:05:46.640 --> 00:05:47.280\nconversations. I\n\n116\n00:05:47.280 --> 00:05:51.520\ndon't care why they did it. You know, it's what they did. And so, but because\n\n117\n00:05:51.520 --> 00:05:52.560\nof that, I read a lot\n\n118\n00:05:52.560 --> 00:05:56.300\nof Freud before I finished college. I mean, I've had almost all the before I\n\n119\n00:05:56.300 --> 00:05:57.280\nfinished college,\n\n120\n00:05:57.280 --> 00:06:00.570\njust to help you know how people think. And of course, a lot of Freud was wrong\n\n121\n00:06:00.570 --> 00:06:01.680\n. But it is a real\n\n122\n00:06:01.680 --> 00:06:06.560\ninsight into trying to figure out how the mind works. Yeah, how much do you\n\n123\n00:06:06.560 --> 00:06:07.920\nthink that really helped\n\n124\n00:06:07.920 --> 00:06:12.070\nyou as you started working with people? Quite a bit. You know, I always try to\n\n125\n00:06:12.070 --> 00:06:13.680\nbe, I mean, I think\n\n126\n00:06:13.680 --> 00:06:17.510\nboth sides, you know, trying to act and do something, but also try to figure\n\n127\n00:06:17.510 --> 00:06:18.400\nout people and\n\n128\n00:06:18.400 --> 00:06:22.880\ntheir, you know, their motivations, all those EQ things you're talking about,\n\n129\n00:06:22.880 --> 00:06:23.440\nare they real or\n\n130\n00:06:23.440 --> 00:06:28.850\nauthentic with motivation, why treating people respectfully. So yeah, I do\n\n131\n00:06:28.850 --> 00:06:30.000\nthink it helps in\n\n132\n00:06:30.000 --> 00:06:34.940\nparty life, you always thinking how the world works, but also how people work.\n\n133\n00:06:34.940 --> 00:06:35.680\nAnd though,\n\n134\n00:06:35.680 --> 00:06:39.860\nas you know, both of those things can be very complicated. And we still spend\n\n135\n00:06:39.860 --> 00:06:40.160\nmost of trying\n\n136\n00:06:40.160 --> 00:06:44.430\nto figure that stuff out. You know, out of the fact that your dad was in\n\n137\n00:06:44.430 --> 00:06:46.080\nfinance and, and you know,\n\n138\n00:06:46.080 --> 00:06:51.970\nwas totally indoctrinated in that world. You know, how did that impact, you\n\n139\n00:06:51.970 --> 00:06:53.440\nknow, where you headed?\n\n140\n00:06:53.440 --> 00:06:59.680\nAnd and when you think about your dad, what was the biggest thing you learned\n\n141\n00:06:59.680 --> 00:07:00.960\nfrom him that you\n\n142\n00:07:00.960 --> 00:07:07.080\ntook into the business world? So of the three boys, I was the only one who took\n\n143\n00:07:07.080 --> 00:07:07.760\nan interest in\n\n144\n00:07:07.760 --> 00:07:10.690\nfinance. I worked from the summary of basically like doing mailings and\n\n145\n00:07:10.690 --> 00:07:11.760\nanswering phones and stuff\n\n146\n00:07:11.760 --> 00:07:17.270\nlike that when I was 14 or 15. But I was interested. I always read the papers.\n\n147\n00:07:17.270 --> 00:07:18.080\nI always read the business\n\n148\n00:07:18.080 --> 00:07:22.900\nsection. I read the sports section. I read the, so he nurtured that, you know,\n\n149\n00:07:22.900 --> 00:07:23.600\nhe didn't make\n\n150\n00:07:23.600 --> 00:07:26.490\nanyone do it. Like I said, my older brother became a physicist, my other\n\n151\n00:07:26.490 --> 00:07:26.880\nbrother,\n\n152\n00:07:26.880 --> 00:07:32.080\neducator, but which my parents enormously respected. But I was interested in\n\n153\n00:07:32.080 --> 00:07:33.040\nthat part of the world.\n\n154\n00:07:33.040 --> 00:07:37.040\nAnd so he'd give me stuff to read. I remember reading a book that Merrill Lynch\n\n155\n00:07:37.040 --> 00:07:37.200\nhad done,\n\n156\n00:07:37.200 --> 00:07:42.010\nlike how to read an income statement and balance sheet. I read Graham and Dodd.\n\n157\n00:07:42.010 --> 00:07:42.640\nThere's a big thick\n\n158\n00:07:42.640 --> 00:07:46.510\none, but there's a one called the intelligent investor. I probably read it when\n\n159\n00:07:46.510 --> 00:07:47.120\nI was 15.\n\n160\n00:07:47.120 --> 00:07:51.620\nAnd I bought my first stocks and I got 14 or 15. And so that my interest was\n\n161\n00:07:51.620 --> 00:07:53.440\nPete. I wasn't heading\n\n162\n00:07:53.440 --> 00:07:57.320\nto be a stockbroker. In fact, my father didn't want me to. His, his view, what\n\n163\n00:07:57.320 --> 00:07:58.240\nyou know, a lot of\n\n164\n00:07:58.240 --> 00:08:01.950\npeople like the grass is green on the other side. He didn't think it was what I\n\n165\n00:08:01.950 --> 00:08:03.040\nshould be doing or\n\n166\n00:08:03.040 --> 00:08:06.600\nstuff like that. But, and I didn't head to be a stockbroker. But yeah, of\n\n167\n00:08:06.600 --> 00:08:07.520\ncourse, it nurtured\n\n168\n00:08:07.520 --> 00:08:10.930\nme interest. And, you know, I wrote a couple of papers in college about\n\n169\n00:08:10.930 --> 00:08:12.160\nbusiness and stuff like\n\n170\n00:08:12.160 --> 00:08:16.580\nthat. So I was interested. And, but the interest was more about building\n\n171\n00:08:16.580 --> 00:08:18.640\nsomething, building something\n\n172\n00:08:18.640 --> 00:08:22.460\ngreat. You know, I would read the stories about companies that had really done\n\n173\n00:08:22.460 --> 00:08:23.440\ninteresting stuff\n\n174\n00:08:23.440 --> 00:08:27.050\nand built things and bought things and, you know, made, you know, made more\n\n175\n00:08:27.050 --> 00:08:28.160\nemployees and stuff like\n\n176\n00:08:28.160 --> 00:08:32.120\nthat. So, so yeah, it nurtured it, gave me stuff to read. I know a very hum\n\n177\n00:08:32.120 --> 00:08:33.600\nbling thing. He came home\n\n178\n00:08:33.600 --> 00:08:38.020\none day a couple of times. I remember young brands would take a business you\n\n179\n00:08:38.020 --> 00:08:38.320\nthink you would\n\n180\n00:08:38.320 --> 00:08:42.450\nunderstand like a restaurant, you know, and, and you can understand what the\n\n181\n00:08:42.450 --> 00:08:43.680\nprofits are and, you\n\n182\n00:08:43.680 --> 00:08:47.900\nactually eat there as opposed to like, you know, chips, which is hard for a kid\n\n183\n00:08:47.900 --> 00:08:48.640\n. But he would,\n\n184\n00:08:48.640 --> 00:08:53.050\nhe would take it back then, and he would report so much shorter. And he would\n\n185\n00:08:53.050 --> 00:08:53.840\nrip out the page and\n\n186\n00:08:53.840 --> 00:08:58.900\nhad the price and say, read this thing and tell me you would pay for it. And\n\n187\n00:08:58.900 --> 00:08:59.760\nfor anyone out there,\n\n188\n00:08:59.760 --> 00:09:03.600\nI don't care how smart you are or how good I think you are, you would be hum\n\n189\n00:09:03.600 --> 00:09:04.880\nbled by that exercise.\n\n190\n00:09:04.880 --> 00:09:09.680\nAnd so it becomes a discipline about what makes you think about things and how\n\n191\n00:09:09.680 --> 00:09:10.160\nyou think about\n\n192\n00:09:10.160 --> 00:09:16.080\nvalues and, and, that's so cool. And so you grow up in this rough and tumble\n\n193\n00:09:16.080 --> 00:09:17.840\nneighborhood, you get\n\n194\n00:09:17.840 --> 00:09:23.470\nthe street fights and here you end up going to Harvard. Okay. I don't really\n\n195\n00:09:23.470 --> 00:09:24.880\nsee you as a Harvard guy.\n\n196\n00:09:24.880 --> 00:09:29.440\nI know you could definitely, you know, you know, do well there, but you know,\n\n197\n00:09:29.440 --> 00:09:30.400\nthat had to be a\n\n198\n00:09:30.400 --> 00:09:35.140\ndifferent kind of place for you. So I, so I went to Tufts University. I was one\n\n199\n00:09:35.140 --> 00:09:35.280\nof those\n\n200\n00:09:35.280 --> 00:09:38.470\ndeferred admits. So you know, you're going to go, but back then you had to work\n\n201\n00:09:38.470 --> 00:09:39.040\nfor two years,\n\n202\n00:09:39.040 --> 00:09:44.130\nI worked at a consulting company that doesn't exist anymore. And I, and I, you\n\n203\n00:09:44.130 --> 00:09:45.360\nknow, I did well\n\n204\n00:09:45.360 --> 00:09:49.980\nschool and I was, I didn't go in very nervous like that. But my wife tells this\n\n205\n00:09:49.980 --> 00:09:50.560\nstory because I met\n\n206\n00:09:50.560 --> 00:09:54.350\nmy wife in the second year there as you know, that you know, I was the guy in\n\n207\n00:09:54.350 --> 00:09:55.200\nthe class like\n\n208\n00:09:55.200 --> 00:10:00.510\nwearing the leather jacket, a t-shirt, jeans, you know, not prep, you know, and\n\n209\n00:10:00.510 --> 00:10:01.200\nI hadn't gotten a\n\n210\n00:10:01.200 --> 00:10:05.610\nHarvard undergrad or Yale or Princeton or, you know, a lot of that. But I loved\n\n211\n00:10:05.610 --> 00:10:06.320\nit because\n\n212\n00:10:06.320 --> 00:10:09.650\nthe Socratic method, you know, for those who don't know, you're sitting in a\n\n213\n00:10:09.650 --> 00:10:10.720\nclass with 80 people,\n\n214\n00:10:10.720 --> 00:10:14.740\nyou read cases and then the real world is messy. So this is not like theory\n\n215\n00:10:14.740 --> 00:10:15.680\nanymore. You give me\n\n216\n00:10:15.680 --> 00:10:19.160\nthat talk about capital markets. It isn't like, you know, supply demand curves.\n\n217\n00:10:19.160 --> 00:10:19.680\nIt's like,\n\n218\n00:10:19.680 --> 00:10:23.360\nwhy do things trade this way? And why do people do those things? Why do so many\n\n219\n00:10:23.360 --> 00:10:24.160\nbusiness ventures\n\n220\n00:10:24.160 --> 00:10:29.810\nsucceed and so many fail and, and be learned that in, and even today, if you\n\n221\n00:10:29.810 --> 00:10:30.480\nand I went there and\n\n222\n00:10:30.480 --> 00:10:34.670\nsat through a good case as your friend, Andy Pearson, taught, and I went there\n\n223\n00:10:34.670 --> 00:10:35.600\nwhen he was there,\n\n224\n00:10:35.600 --> 00:10:39.920\nyou learn a lot from listening to other people. And that is a great, I still do\n\n225\n00:10:39.920 --> 00:10:40.400\nthat. You sit\n\n226\n00:10:40.400 --> 00:10:45.310\naround the table, why, what, when you went to other companies, things. And so I\n\n227\n00:10:45.310 --> 00:10:46.240\nliked it. I\n\n228\n00:10:46.240 --> 00:10:50.600\nwasn't, you know, people afraid of public speaking had a hard time. People who\n\n229\n00:10:50.600 --> 00:10:51.360\nweren't a little\n\n230\n00:10:51.360 --> 00:10:54.560\nproficient numbers might have had a hard time, but I kind of, kind of loved it.\n\n231\n00:10:54.560 --> 00:10:55.200\nMade some great\n\n232\n00:10:55.200 --> 00:10:58.720\nfriends there. So who I still speak to, you know, you know, Steve Burke. Yeah.\n\n233\n00:10:58.720 --> 00:11:00.160\nMy wife wasn't that\n\n234\n00:11:00.160 --> 00:11:04.140\nhappy with it. You know, it made some people are kind of nervous. But you know,\n\n235\n00:11:04.140 --> 00:11:05.200\nwhen you settle in,\n\n236\n00:11:05.200 --> 00:11:08.560\nonce you see the people, you get to know them and they're having fun every day,\n\n237\n00:11:08.560 --> 00:11:09.600\nit's, it's pretty\n\n238\n00:11:09.600 --> 00:11:16.050\ngood. So you, you, you meet your wife, Judy at, at Harvard. When was that aha\n\n239\n00:11:16.050 --> 00:11:17.520\nmoment? You knew that\n\n240\n00:11:17.520 --> 00:11:23.290\nshe was the one. So she was introduced to us by a friend, Mandel, you may\n\n241\n00:11:23.290 --> 00:11:24.960\nactually have met at one,\n\n242\n00:11:24.960 --> 00:11:30.530\none point along the way. And, you know, I, I've, she pointed out to me, and\n\n243\n00:11:30.530 --> 00:11:32.080\nJudy was very pretty,\n\n244\n00:11:32.080 --> 00:11:35.430\nyou know, very smart. And I was, so I was interested in treating right off the\n\n245\n00:11:35.430 --> 00:11:36.960\nbat. She had asked to\n\n246\n00:11:36.960 --> 00:11:39.710\nmeet me, you know, and she thought I was just, I don't know, kind of cool or\n\n247\n00:11:39.710 --> 00:11:40.640\nsomething like that.\n\n248\n00:11:40.640 --> 00:11:45.220\nAnd I talked about wearing sunglasses and t-shirts and I really, really wear\n\n249\n00:11:45.220 --> 00:11:46.000\nsunglasses. I'm not\n\n250\n00:11:46.000 --> 00:11:50.320\nquite sure what she was talking about. But I called up her house. She lived\n\n251\n00:11:50.320 --> 00:11:51.760\nwith like six other women.\n\n252\n00:11:51.760 --> 00:11:55.370\nOne of them was the president of the finance club. I was a vice president of\n\n253\n00:11:55.370 --> 00:11:56.160\nfinance club.\n\n254\n00:11:56.160 --> 00:12:00.870\nAnd, and I was speaking to her about some event we were doing. And then Judy\n\n255\n00:12:00.870 --> 00:12:01.840\ngot in the phone and\n\n256\n00:12:01.840 --> 00:12:05.640\nsaid, Hey, do you want to play some tennis? I said, well, sure. We hit it off\n\n257\n00:12:05.640 --> 00:12:06.880\nright away. She says\n\n258\n00:12:06.880 --> 00:12:10.330\nwent to have a molted shake or whatever that day. She says I made her pay,\n\n259\n00:12:10.330 --> 00:12:11.200\nwhich I don't think\n\n260\n00:12:11.200 --> 00:12:14.660\nis true. But, and then we, she had, she had a boyfriend, by the way, it wasn't\n\n261\n00:12:14.660 --> 00:12:15.520\nat Harvard Business\n\n262\n00:12:15.520 --> 00:12:18.920\nSchool. But we started seeing each other almost every day for dinner after that\n\n263\n00:12:18.920 --> 00:12:20.240\n. And, and that,\n\n264\n00:12:20.240 --> 00:12:24.560\nthat was that story. Fantastic. And how long you been married now?\n\n265\n00:12:24.560 --> 00:12:29.920\nVery 43 42 years. What would you say are the biggest learnings you've had on\n\n266\n00:12:29.920 --> 00:12:30.640\nhow to make\n\n267\n00:12:31.200 --> 00:12:35.610\na marriage work for that length of time and have the success you guys have had\n\n268\n00:12:35.610 --> 00:12:36.160\nas partner?\n\n269\n00:12:36.160 --> 00:12:40.330\nNo, I mean, when you give advice in this, you know, that you, you, you learn a\n\n270\n00:12:40.330 --> 00:12:40.800\nlot. You just\n\n271\n00:12:40.800 --> 00:12:44.470\ndo it well, like all the time. And so I'll tell you some of the things I think\n\n272\n00:12:44.470 --> 00:12:45.440\nwe did well.\n\n273\n00:12:45.440 --> 00:12:48.960\nIt was first of all, we were devoted to each other and kids. So we had, we want\n\n274\n00:12:48.960 --> 00:12:49.440\nto have kids,\n\n275\n00:12:49.440 --> 00:12:53.600\nwe want to have a family. She had a professional career. But for anyone out\n\n276\n00:12:53.600 --> 00:12:54.240\nthere, the younger\n\n277\n00:12:54.240 --> 00:12:58.320\npeople who listened to this, that's when you have a job and kids and you're\n\n278\n00:12:58.320 --> 00:12:59.280\nstill like, you know,\n\n279\n00:12:59.280 --> 00:13:03.200\n28 years old. That's when you're kind of burning the can of both ends. And you,\n\n280\n00:13:03.200 --> 00:13:03.920\nnow you have a real\n\n281\n00:13:03.920 --> 00:13:09.140\nobligation to family, your wife, your kids, and stuff like that. And I always\n\n282\n00:13:09.140 --> 00:13:10.000\ntell people,\n\n283\n00:13:10.000 --> 00:13:14.920\nthose are the lessons. And I didn't always do these right. Is you need to make\n\n284\n00:13:14.920 --> 00:13:15.760\nsure that you\n\n285\n00:13:15.760 --> 00:13:19.210\ntake care of your mind, your body, your spirit, your soul, your friends, your\n\n286\n00:13:19.210 --> 00:13:20.160\nfamily. It doesn't\n\n287\n00:13:20.160 --> 00:13:23.930\nhappen automatically. And you and I've seen a lot of people professionally in\n\n288\n00:13:23.930 --> 00:13:24.720\nany profession.\n\n289\n00:13:24.720 --> 00:13:28.640\nAnd maybe not in profession, they start to neglect that stuff. And you're, you\n\n290\n00:13:28.640 --> 00:13:29.600\nknow, it's bad. It's\n\n291\n00:13:29.600 --> 00:13:33.050\nbad for your health, it's bad for your family. You end up getting divorced. So\n\n292\n00:13:33.050 --> 00:13:33.760\nit takes time and\n\n293\n00:13:33.760 --> 00:13:37.910\nit takes attention. And that's the most probably the most important thing. I\n\n294\n00:13:37.910 --> 00:13:39.120\nthink we never did\n\n295\n00:13:39.120 --> 00:13:43.980\nthis, but I think it's very smart for, you know, I was working so hard that we\n\n296\n00:13:43.980 --> 00:13:45.600\ntook family vacations.\n\n297\n00:13:45.600 --> 00:13:48.780\nMy wife and I very, really took a vacation, just the two of us, which is now\n\n298\n00:13:48.780 --> 00:13:49.760\nlike a standard thing.\n\n299\n00:13:50.320 --> 00:13:53.920\nYou know, people now like they have the, there's a name for it. I've got the\n\n300\n00:13:53.920 --> 00:13:55.120\nname for it. My kids\n\n301\n00:13:55.120 --> 00:13:58.110\ndo it. And I think it's just great. And then we also get the grandkids a little\n\n302\n00:13:58.110 --> 00:13:59.440\nbit. But I think\n\n303\n00:13:59.440 --> 00:14:02.960\npeople should do that focus, you know, spend time. At the end of the day, it's\n\n304\n00:14:02.960 --> 00:14:04.000\ngoing to be time\n\n305\n00:14:04.000 --> 00:14:10.880\nand quality. So, you know, you meet your wife at Harvard, you get, you know,\n\n306\n00:14:10.880 --> 00:14:12.320\nthat education that\n\n307\n00:14:12.320 --> 00:14:17.330\neverybody craves for and you loved every bit. Tell us the story of how you\n\n308\n00:14:17.330 --> 00:14:19.360\nlanded your first job\n\n309\n00:14:19.360 --> 00:14:24.720\nout of Harvard. When I graduated Harvard, I was going to Wall Street, you know,\n\n310\n00:14:24.720 --> 00:14:25.280\nnot necessarily\n\n311\n00:14:25.280 --> 00:14:27.960\nbecause I want to be an investment banker, but they pay a lot and you learn a\n\n312\n00:14:27.960 --> 00:14:28.480\nlot. You know,\n\n313\n00:14:28.480 --> 00:14:32.470\nI just figured that first couple of jobs just learn as much as you can. And I\n\n314\n00:14:32.470 --> 00:14:33.200\nhad office from\n\n315\n00:14:33.200 --> 00:14:36.900\nGoldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Lehman Brothers, which are three of the best.\n\n316\n00:14:36.900 --> 00:14:38.000\nBut Sandy Weil ran\n\n317\n00:14:38.000 --> 00:14:42.660\nthe firm that my father was at. And I knew him a little bit. I had met, I'd\n\n318\n00:14:42.660 --> 00:14:44.400\nworked there in one\n\n319\n00:14:44.400 --> 00:14:47.740\nsummer when I was in college. You know, remember the old days, dad entry, I\n\n320\n00:14:47.740 --> 00:14:49.280\nbasically did dad entry\n\n321\n00:14:49.280 --> 00:14:55.320\nfor budgets. And I had written a paper on the merger Sheerson and Sheerson and\n\n322\n00:14:55.320 --> 00:14:55.920\nHayden Stone.\n\n323\n00:14:55.920 --> 00:15:00.390\nMy mother sent it to him and he sent me a letter saying this is a great paper.\n\n324\n00:15:00.390 --> 00:15:01.120\nYou know,\n\n325\n00:15:01.120 --> 00:15:04.880\nwould you come, would you want to come talk to me? So I went to talk to him and\n\n326\n00:15:04.880 --> 00:15:05.520\nhe offered me a\n\n327\n00:15:05.520 --> 00:15:10.980\njob working, he just sold Sheerson, Hayden Stone to American Express and get a\n\n328\n00:15:10.980 --> 00:15:11.760\njob in the investment\n\n329\n00:15:11.760 --> 00:15:15.710\nbank. I told him no, because I, you know, Goldman, Goldman is basically pay me\n\n330\n00:15:15.710 --> 00:15:16.640\na lot more. And\n\n331\n00:15:16.640 --> 00:15:20.140\nyou, but more important than that is you get a lot more experience. And I\n\n332\n00:15:20.140 --> 00:15:21.440\nthought, why would I give up,\n\n333\n00:15:21.440 --> 00:15:25.490\nyou know, great experience of Goldman and I repay and, and then he called me\n\n334\n00:15:25.490 --> 00:15:27.200\nback. I become a Baker\n\n335\n00:15:27.200 --> 00:15:30.140\nscholar at Harvard Physical, which was important to him. He likes that kind of\n\n336\n00:15:30.140 --> 00:15:30.960\nstature and status,\n\n337\n00:15:30.960 --> 00:15:34.400\nwhich is, you know, the top three or four percent of the kids at the school.\n\n338\n00:15:34.400 --> 00:15:36.480\nAnd he then he said,\n\n339\n00:15:36.480 --> 00:15:39.460\nyou know what, I just sold a company here to American Express. He was very down\n\n340\n00:15:39.460 --> 00:15:40.080\nto Earth back\n\n341\n00:15:40.080 --> 00:15:43.830\nthen. I don't remember if you knew him way back then. And America Express is\n\n342\n00:15:43.830 --> 00:15:45.280\nmore of a bureaucratic,\n\n343\n00:15:45.280 --> 00:15:50.500\nyou know, company. He said, I don't know how it's going to turn out. But I\n\n344\n00:15:50.500 --> 00:15:51.280\nwould, I would love to\n\n345\n00:15:51.280 --> 00:15:54.450\nhave you here's my assistant. You'll learn a lot, you'll see a lot. You know,\n\n346\n00:15:54.450 --> 00:15:55.520\nyou can always go back\n\n347\n00:15:55.520 --> 00:15:59.920\nto Wall Street. And that really intrigued me because I'd never been in it. I'd\n\n348\n00:15:59.920 --> 00:16:00.640\nreally never\n\n349\n00:16:00.640 --> 00:16:05.500\nseen a big corporation. I never, I thought, you know, he was interesting. He\n\n350\n00:16:05.500 --> 00:16:06.480\nwas very different\n\n351\n00:16:06.480 --> 00:16:10.720\nin corporate America, the fund. He's like a Jack Wells type at the time. And I\n\n352\n00:16:10.720 --> 00:16:12.160\ndid figure out if\n\n353\n00:16:12.160 --> 00:16:16.510\nit didn't work out, I'd go back to Wall Street or something. So, and I could\n\n354\n00:16:16.510 --> 00:16:17.920\ntell you, my interest\n\n355\n00:16:17.920 --> 00:16:21.810\nwas in building something. It wasn't necessarily being an investment banker.\n\n356\n00:16:21.810 --> 00:16:22.560\nAnd he had built\n\n357\n00:16:22.560 --> 00:16:26.270\nSheerston Hayden Stone. And then he had these big dreams about what's going to,\n\n358\n00:16:26.270 --> 00:16:26.320\nwhat might\n\n359\n00:16:26.320 --> 00:16:30.180\nhappen to the American Express and financial services. So I took the crapshoot\n\n360\n00:16:30.180 --> 00:16:31.040\nand joined him\n\n361\n00:16:31.040 --> 00:16:34.720\nfor a lot less pay. I mean, a lot less pay, but I didn't really care that much\n\n362\n00:16:34.720 --> 00:16:35.600\nabout that. I really\n\n363\n00:16:35.600 --> 00:16:40.000\ncared about the experience. Tell us a story about where you think you picked up\n\n364\n00:16:40.000 --> 00:16:40.720\nand gleaned the\n\n365\n00:16:40.720 --> 00:16:47.040\nthe biggest insight you learn from Sandy Well. And he was iconic. He was very\n\n366\n00:16:47.040 --> 00:16:47.840\nmuch like a Jack\n\n367\n00:16:47.840 --> 00:16:51.560\nWelch. You know, so I go to America. It wasn't the president. He became the\n\n368\n00:16:51.560 --> 00:16:52.800\npresident shortly after\n\n369\n00:16:52.800 --> 00:17:01.730\nthat. So Sandy, Sandy, he was down to earth. He, you know, he didn't, he worked\n\n370\n00:17:01.730 --> 00:17:02.880\nall the time for\n\n371\n00:17:02.880 --> 00:17:06.030\nthe company. Me, he'd have breakfast, lunch, dinner, you know, selling, buying,\n\n372\n00:17:06.030 --> 00:17:06.880\nhiring, recruiting,\n\n373\n00:17:06.880 --> 00:17:11.200\nalways thinking about mergers, always what we can buy, what we can buy. So like\n\n374\n00:17:11.200 --> 00:17:11.600\na lot of the\n\n375\n00:17:11.600 --> 00:17:15.300\nmergers we did over the next 20 years were because relationships he had built\n\n376\n00:17:15.300 --> 00:17:16.240\nup over a long period\n\n377\n00:17:16.240 --> 00:17:20.460\nof time. He hated the bureaucracy of the American Express. And you know, one of\n\n378\n00:17:20.460 --> 00:17:21.200\nthe things that we\n\n379\n00:17:21.200 --> 00:17:24.460\nall learn in life is when you like when you work at certain types of things,\n\n380\n00:17:24.460 --> 00:17:25.520\nyou know, like you\n\n381\n00:17:25.520 --> 00:17:30.870\nalso learn very good things would not to do. They were hugely bureaucratic. So\n\n382\n00:17:30.870 --> 00:17:31.200\nthey had,\n\n383\n00:17:32.320 --> 00:17:36.620\nthey had the board and they literally everyone prepared for the board meeting.\n\n384\n00:17:36.620 --> 00:17:37.040\nAnd then they had\n\n385\n00:17:37.040 --> 00:17:43.040\nthe preboard prep and the pre preboard prep. And it took, it took every month.\n\n386\n00:17:43.040 --> 00:17:43.440\nAnd you remember\n\n387\n00:17:43.440 --> 00:17:46.940\nBob Lip, who's still doing great. I speak to every now and then Bob Lip hated\n\n388\n00:17:46.940 --> 00:17:48.160\nthat stuff. A lot of\n\n389\n00:17:48.160 --> 00:17:52.340\nthe big banks had a lot of bureaucratic, a lot of politics inside and people\n\n390\n00:17:52.340 --> 00:17:53.920\ndidn't share information\n\n391\n00:17:53.920 --> 00:17:58.640\nand who's up and who's down. And, and, you know, internally, it was less of a\n\n392\n00:17:58.640 --> 00:17:59.520\nmeritocracy, more of\n\n393\n00:17:59.520 --> 00:18:03.830\na who do you know and where did you go to school at least early on. And he just\n\n394\n00:18:03.830 --> 00:18:04.480\n, he just hated all\n\n395\n00:18:04.480 --> 00:18:08.630\nthat stuff. And said, Bob Lip, of course, you may remember he, when we got to\n\n396\n00:18:08.630 --> 00:18:09.280\ntravel is when he\n\n397\n00:18:09.280 --> 00:18:12.360\njoined us at commercial credit, is like, you couldn't make a presentation of\n\n398\n00:18:12.360 --> 00:18:12.880\nthe board with\n\n399\n00:18:12.880 --> 00:18:16.500\nthe PowerPoint. Like he just said, we're not doing it. And he not prepared. So\n\n400\n00:18:16.500 --> 00:18:17.600\nI never prepared a\n\n401\n00:18:17.600 --> 00:18:21.330\npresentation for the board ever. Not once. I've done it for big deals we did\n\n402\n00:18:21.330 --> 00:18:22.320\nand stuff like that.\n\n403\n00:18:22.320 --> 00:18:27.760\nAnd so, so Sandy was always hustling that stuff. Always wanted to know the\n\n404\n00:18:27.760 --> 00:18:29.040\nfacts and the BS and\n\n405\n00:18:29.040 --> 00:18:33.360\nthe bureaucracy. And, you know, it was a fanatic about expenses and growing.\n\n406\n00:18:33.360 --> 00:18:34.160\nAnd, you know, we\n\n407\n00:18:34.160 --> 00:18:37.600\nbought Lehman, we were there. He's always out with the salespeople shaking\n\n408\n00:18:37.600 --> 00:18:39.200\nhands doing the dinners.\n\n409\n00:18:39.200 --> 00:18:42.450\nYou have a lot of CEOs just wouldn't do that. You know, they just they're too\n\n410\n00:18:42.450 --> 00:18:43.120\nbusy to actually\n\n411\n00:18:43.120 --> 00:18:47.520\nhang out with their own people. And so you learn all those lessons.\n\n412\n00:18:47.520 --> 00:18:53.120\nDo you think leadership has evolved in terms of what really makes a leader\n\n413\n00:18:53.120 --> 00:18:54.480\ntoday versus in those\n\n414\n00:18:54.480 --> 00:19:00.480\ndays? And do you see a difference? There is definitely a difference. And, you\n\n415\n00:19:00.480 --> 00:19:00.800\nknow,\n\n416\n00:19:00.800 --> 00:19:05.770\nwhen you ask questions like that, I always think about what is the same and\n\n417\n00:19:05.770 --> 00:19:06.720\nwhat changed.\n\n418\n00:19:06.720 --> 00:19:09.840\nSo let me just do what's the same. Okay. Because I think, yeah, be very careful\n\n419\n00:19:09.840 --> 00:19:10.160\nabout it. Like,\n\n420\n00:19:10.160 --> 00:19:13.840\nit's totally different. I think in all these things, you know, like Andy\n\n421\n00:19:13.840 --> 00:19:15.120\nPearson was one of the great\n\n422\n00:19:15.120 --> 00:19:19.430\nCEOs of all time. You know, Jack Wells before Jack Wells. But the, the mind\n\n423\n00:19:19.430 --> 00:19:20.800\npower, the analytics,\n\n424\n00:19:20.800 --> 00:19:24.720\nthe detail, the repeat, the rinse, the go out to the store, the observer is\n\n425\n00:19:24.720 --> 00:19:25.760\ngoing on to listen to\n\n426\n00:19:25.760 --> 00:19:30.590\npeople to do it again, branch by branch, product by product service by service.\n\n427\n00:19:30.590 --> 00:19:31.200\nA lot of companies\n\n428\n00:19:31.200 --> 00:19:35.290\ndon't do that. You know, and they literally, and then even politics inside a\n\n429\n00:19:35.290 --> 00:19:36.080\ncompany stops,\n\n430\n00:19:36.080 --> 00:19:40.730\nyou know, a full undressing of your own performance. Like, how are we actually\n\n431\n00:19:40.730 --> 00:19:41.920\ndoing? Why, you know,\n\n432\n00:19:41.920 --> 00:19:45.380\nif you're, if you're in Pizza Hut, you know, what, not why is just Taco Bell\n\n433\n00:19:45.380 --> 00:19:46.320\nmay be doing better.\n\n434\n00:19:46.320 --> 00:19:50.670\nWell, why is McDonald's doing better? This company oversees doing better. And\n\n435\n00:19:50.670 --> 00:19:51.360\nif you don't do that,\n\n436\n00:19:51.360 --> 00:19:55.270\nit's very hard to become a great company. So I don't think that's changed. I\n\n437\n00:19:55.270 --> 00:19:56.160\nthink some\n\n438\n00:19:56.160 --> 00:19:59.830\ncompanies rely too much on outside advisors and all that. Another thing that\n\n439\n00:19:59.830 --> 00:20:01.040\nhas not changed is,\n\n440\n00:20:01.040 --> 00:20:05.390\nI'm going to say, great administration, meaning, you know, you look at, and you\n\n441\n00:20:05.390 --> 00:20:06.160\n've seen it where\n\n442\n00:20:06.160 --> 00:20:09.920\nsome people run companies, they're a hot mess. People don't know what their\n\n443\n00:20:09.920 --> 00:20:10.400\njobs are,\n\n444\n00:20:10.400 --> 00:20:13.730\nmeetings don't start in time. They don't return their phone calls. They're too\n\n445\n00:20:13.730 --> 00:20:14.480\nbusy. You know,\n\n446\n00:20:14.480 --> 00:20:18.560\nand I always use as an example, a military example, but Eisenhower, you know,\n\n447\n00:20:18.560 --> 00:20:19.840\nduring\n\n448\n00:20:19.840 --> 00:20:26.770\nNorman D&D Day, 150,000 troops, 7,000 ships, hundreds of aircraft, 30,000 power\n\n449\n00:20:26.770 --> 00:20:27.200\ntroops,\n\n450\n00:20:27.200 --> 00:20:32.570\nfood, guns, bullets, timing, planning, and you know, you got to run stuff. So\n\n451\n00:20:32.570 --> 00:20:33.280\nyou may, you may not be\n\n452\n00:20:33.280 --> 00:20:36.640\nthe greatest analyst in the world, but you got to run it. And the people have\n\n453\n00:20:36.640 --> 00:20:37.200\nto know what their\n\n454\n00:20:37.200 --> 00:20:41.910\njobs are, how you're doing it. And the last part changed a bit, okay, and not\n\n455\n00:20:41.910 --> 00:20:43.280\nfor everybody, but,\n\n456\n00:20:43.920 --> 00:20:47.840\nand I think it's the most important part, and you, you know, you were part of\n\n457\n00:20:47.840 --> 00:20:48.880\nthis too, but\n\n458\n00:20:48.880 --> 00:20:52.560\nwhen I started working, there was a lot of the, you know, the panel, the table,\n\n459\n00:20:52.560 --> 00:20:53.360\nand, you know,\n\n460\n00:20:53.360 --> 00:20:57.770\nthe politics, and I think what really makes a great leader is this part, which\n\n461\n00:20:57.770 --> 00:20:58.400\nis heart and\n\n462\n00:20:58.400 --> 00:21:01.550\ncuriosity. You know, you, you, you, you, you, you, you're a recognition. I want\n\n463\n00:21:01.550 --> 00:21:02.560\nto explain to your,\n\n464\n00:21:02.560 --> 00:21:05.980\nyour listeners a little bit about how I see recognition and what I learned from\n\n465\n00:21:05.980 --> 00:21:06.160\nyou,\n\n466\n00:21:06.160 --> 00:21:10.330\nyou know, heart is actually give a damn. It makes you authentic. You're not\n\n467\n00:21:10.330 --> 00:21:11.200\ntrying to be perfect.\n\n468\n00:21:11.200 --> 00:21:15.440\nYou make lots of mistakes, but they see people know you are, they aren't how\n\n469\n00:21:15.440 --> 00:21:16.080\nyou treat people,\n\n470\n00:21:16.080 --> 00:21:19.720\nwhat you say, do what you say, do what you follow up. And for everyone on the\n\n471\n00:21:19.720 --> 00:21:20.160\npodcast,\n\n472\n00:21:20.160 --> 00:21:24.000\nyou've all seen the besters out there. People, they think they're getting away\n\n473\n00:21:24.000 --> 00:21:24.320\nwith it. They\n\n474\n00:21:24.320 --> 00:21:27.280\ngenerally aren't. And you know, people don't want to work for those people. And\n\n475\n00:21:27.280 --> 00:21:28.480\n, and you know,\n\n476\n00:21:28.480 --> 00:21:32.210\nyou can read all these leaders, whether it's military or history or business,\n\n477\n00:21:32.210 --> 00:21:33.120\nyou earn trust\n\n478\n00:21:33.120 --> 00:21:37.550\nand respect. You earn it by, by every day showing that you're going to work as\n\n479\n00:21:37.550 --> 00:21:38.400\nhard as they do,\n\n480\n00:21:38.400 --> 00:21:41.810\nyou care as much as you're trying to do the right thing. You're not trying to\n\n481\n00:21:41.810 --> 00:21:42.480\nbe right.\n\n482\n00:21:42.480 --> 00:21:46.630\nYou're the first person to say, I made a mistake. You're the first person to\n\n483\n00:21:46.630 --> 00:21:47.440\nshare credit.\n\n484\n00:21:47.440 --> 00:21:51.540\nYou're not the first person to blame the other person, hang people high, make\n\n485\n00:21:51.540 --> 00:21:52.640\nan example of someone\n\n486\n00:21:52.640 --> 00:21:57.500\nunless they're doing some unethical, and curiosity is the same thing, which you\n\n487\n00:21:57.500 --> 00:21:58.640\n're always learning.\n\n488\n00:21:58.640 --> 00:22:01.500\nSo, you know, I used to go to some branches, you know, some stores with you\n\n489\n00:22:01.500 --> 00:22:02.080\nevery now in the\n\n490\n00:22:02.080 --> 00:22:05.620\nrestaurants, and you're always learning. You can go to any, I can go to any\n\n491\n00:22:05.620 --> 00:22:06.320\nbranch that\n\n492\n00:22:06.320 --> 00:22:09.440\nJay P. Werenche today and sit down with the tellers. I'm going to learn some\n\n493\n00:22:09.440 --> 00:22:10.160\nabout what systems you\n\n494\n00:22:10.160 --> 00:22:13.700\nhave, but Bank America does better. Why do we do this? Why does it take some as\n\n495\n00:22:13.700 --> 00:22:14.480\nhow come we can't\n\n496\n00:22:14.480 --> 00:22:18.390\ndo this in the branch? And, but there's a humility to that. There's a humility\n\n497\n00:22:18.390 --> 00:22:19.520\nthat being curious and\n\n498\n00:22:19.520 --> 00:22:23.430\nlearning. And I still see here a lot of people don't want to get in the road.\n\n499\n00:22:23.430 --> 00:22:24.480\nThey don't want to go\n\n500\n00:22:24.480 --> 00:22:27.440\nout. They don't go to a call center. They don't because they don't want to hear\n\n501\n00:22:27.440 --> 00:22:28.080\nabout the mistakes\n\n502\n00:22:28.080 --> 00:22:31.500\nthey're making and what they can do better from someone who, you know, is\n\n503\n00:22:31.500 --> 00:22:32.320\njunior and doesn't have\n\n504\n00:22:32.320 --> 00:22:35.570\nthe same pressure they have. But as you know, you know, the only reason you\n\n505\n00:22:35.570 --> 00:22:36.400\nhave these corporate\n\n506\n00:22:36.400 --> 00:22:39.490\nexecutive floors, I love it. Home Depot does. They, for those of you who don't\n\n507\n00:22:39.490 --> 00:22:40.560\nknow in the podcast,\n\n508\n00:22:40.560 --> 00:22:43.980\nHome Depot calls corporate headquarters. They don't call it global headquarters\n\n509\n00:22:43.980 --> 00:22:44.800\n. They don't call it\n\n510\n00:22:44.800 --> 00:22:48.850\ncorporate headquarters. They call it store support center. That's why they're\n\n511\n00:22:48.850 --> 00:22:49.680\nthere because it's a\n\n512\n00:22:49.680 --> 00:22:53.080\nstore. And in that store, you have people coming in and, and then, you know,\n\n513\n00:22:53.080 --> 00:22:54.000\nhow you treat people,\n\n514\n00:22:54.000 --> 00:22:57.390\nnot just the customers, but how the employees are treated, reflects to how the\n\n515\n00:22:57.390 --> 00:22:57.920\ncustomers can\n\n516\n00:22:57.920 --> 00:23:02.400\nbe treated. So it's that whole combination of heart, curiosity, giving a damn,\n\n517\n00:23:02.400 --> 00:23:03.600\nwhich makes you authentic,\n\n518\n00:23:03.600 --> 00:23:07.840\nwhich is why people want to work for you. And you have much more of that today.\n\n519\n00:23:07.840 --> 00:23:09.520\nAnd in general,\n\n520\n00:23:09.520 --> 00:23:12.820\nin the workplace, which I think is a very good thing, a little more empathy, a\n\n521\n00:23:12.820 --> 00:23:13.360\nlittle more thought,\n\n522\n00:23:13.360 --> 00:23:17.340\nmaybe something gets overdone. But and then you, you're, you always talk about\n\n523\n00:23:17.340 --> 00:23:18.080\nrecognition, but\n\n524\n00:23:18.080 --> 00:23:21.630\nyou remember me telling you what I learned from you about what recognition\n\n525\n00:23:21.630 --> 00:23:22.160\nreally is?\n\n526\n00:23:22.880 --> 00:23:27.830\nRecognition is really telling someone else what they did, acknowledging that\n\n527\n00:23:27.830 --> 00:23:29.040\nyou didn't do it.\n\n528\n00:23:29.040 --> 00:23:32.350\nThey did it. It's acknowledging to recognize someone else. You have to\n\n529\n00:23:32.350 --> 00:23:33.200\nacknowledge you have to be\n\n530\n00:23:33.200 --> 00:23:36.880\ncurious. You have to understand that you're, you're constantly trying to figure\n\n531\n00:23:36.880 --> 00:23:37.600\nout what you can do\n\n532\n00:23:37.600 --> 00:23:42.520\nbetter. And then the, the boss's job is to do help them, everyone do the best\n\n533\n00:23:42.520 --> 00:23:43.280\nthey can. And\n\n534\n00:23:43.280 --> 00:23:46.460\nrecognition is this whole kind of part I was never good at early on in my\n\n535\n00:23:46.460 --> 00:23:47.600\ncareer. But this whole\n\n536\n00:23:47.600 --> 00:23:51.990\npart about the recognition that thank you, you know, sending a note to an\n\n537\n00:23:51.990 --> 00:23:53.280\nemployee who's,\n\n538\n00:23:53.280 --> 00:23:57.200\nyou know, customers sent a great letter about her. So it's constant learning,\n\n539\n00:23:57.200 --> 00:23:58.160\nconstant recognition,\n\n540\n00:23:58.160 --> 00:24:02.660\nand people like it. Early on in my career, when I particularly was on Wall\n\n541\n00:24:02.660 --> 00:24:03.360\nStreet,\n\n542\n00:24:03.360 --> 00:24:05.930\nI always thought recognition meant that people would be pairing the table for\n\n543\n00:24:05.930 --> 00:24:07.040\nmore compensation.\n\n544\n00:24:07.040 --> 00:24:10.800\nBut within, even with investment bankers, it was not true. They actually want\n\n545\n00:24:10.800 --> 00:24:11.040\nto be\n\n546\n00:24:11.040 --> 00:24:15.660\nappreciated for the job they did. It made them feel better as human beings. And\n\n547\n00:24:15.660 --> 00:24:15.760\nthey,\n\n548\n00:24:15.760 --> 00:24:19.360\nthey, you're acknowledging that they did something for a client that was great,\n\n549\n00:24:19.360 --> 00:24:22.240\nyou know, it made them feel important. It wasn't going to, you know,\n\n550\n00:24:22.240 --> 00:24:25.320\nbe, it may feed their ego a little bit, but it wasn't, it's just treating\n\n551\n00:24:25.320 --> 00:24:26.080\npeople respect.\n\n552\n00:24:26.080 --> 00:24:29.600\nRemember you wrote that book? Oh, great one. Yeah. So the guy's trying to learn\n\n553\n00:24:29.600 --> 00:24:30.320\nfrom everybody.\n\n554\n00:24:30.320 --> 00:24:34.320\nAnd as he's learning and making mistakes, that's how you do it. And it's that\n\n555\n00:24:34.320 --> 00:24:35.920\nhumility and recognition.\n\n556\n00:24:35.920 --> 00:24:39.530\nI remember when you had decided to ask the senior investment bankers what they\n\n557\n00:24:39.530 --> 00:24:40.240\nshould get paid.\n\n558\n00:24:40.240 --> 00:24:44.110\nAnd, you know, I thought it might be a terrible idea. Because at the end of the\n\n559\n00:24:44.110 --> 00:24:44.480\nyear, all these\n\n560\n00:24:44.480 --> 00:24:47.980\nterrible fights about stuff like that. And I said, don't put it in a memo. Just\n\n561\n00:24:47.980 --> 00:24:48.880\nsit down with me,\n\n562\n00:24:48.880 --> 00:24:51.540\ntell me, did you have a good year? What do you think? What do you do well? What\n\n563\n00:24:51.540 --> 00:24:52.080\ndo you do well?\n\n564\n00:24:52.080 --> 00:24:57.100\nJust verbal conversation. It's amazing that most of them were much more honest\n\n565\n00:24:57.100 --> 00:24:58.000\nthat way.\n\n566\n00:24:58.000 --> 00:25:03.120\nThey literally said, you know, you know, I did this. I think this and I think\n\n567\n00:25:03.120 --> 00:25:03.520\nmy comps\n\n568\n00:25:03.520 --> 00:25:07.660\nshould be around A, B, and C. And it was when you didn't do that, that they\n\n569\n00:25:07.660 --> 00:25:08.560\ncame in with high demands.\n\n570\n00:25:08.560 --> 00:25:13.500\nYou know, and so I think just showing respect to people goes the hell of a long\n\n571\n00:25:13.500 --> 00:25:13.840\nway.\n\n572\n00:25:13.840 --> 00:25:18.480\nLike those you watch Ted Lasso, you know, that Ted Lasso, the beauty of that\n\n573\n00:25:18.480 --> 00:25:19.280\nstory is that Ted\n\n574\n00:25:19.280 --> 00:25:23.550\nLasso, what he didn't know anything about soccer, but he can get them to\n\n575\n00:25:23.550 --> 00:25:24.320\nfootball,\n\n576\n00:25:24.320 --> 00:25:28.530\nget them to play as a team, get rid of the demons each one have, get them to\n\n577\n00:25:28.530 --> 00:25:29.920\nrespect each other more,\n\n578\n00:25:29.920 --> 00:25:31.520\nget them to fun doing it.\n\n579\n00:25:31.520 --> 00:25:36.960\nAs you were moving up with it and taking on, you know, new companies with Sandy\n\n580\n00:25:36.960 --> 00:25:37.600\nwhile you and\n\n581\n00:25:37.600 --> 00:25:43.520\nLipp, you know, travelers, commercial credit, you were always, you know, buying\n\n582\n00:25:43.520 --> 00:25:44.240\nthese companies\n\n583\n00:25:44.240 --> 00:25:49.940\nand then turning them around, you know, you know, what did you learn are the\n\n584\n00:25:49.940 --> 00:25:52.240\nbasics of fundamental\n\n585\n00:25:52.240 --> 00:25:54.240\nturnaround? What do you have to do?\n\n586\n00:25:54.240 --> 00:25:57.760\nYeah. So if you look at what we did, we were quite successful, but it was not\n\n587\n00:25:57.760 --> 00:25:58.720\nstrategic.\n\n588\n00:25:58.720 --> 00:26:01.270\nIt was more opportunistic. So you're right. We bought companies that had\n\n589\n00:26:01.270 --> 00:26:01.840\nnothing to do with each\n\n590\n00:26:01.840 --> 00:26:08.000\nother sometimes and all cultures are very different. So the first thing I did\n\n591\n00:26:08.000 --> 00:26:09.600\nwas got to literally\n\n592\n00:26:09.600 --> 00:26:13.930\nwould sit down with the management team, like dinner, get to know them. What do\n\n593\n00:26:13.930 --> 00:26:14.400\nyou read?\n\n594\n00:26:14.400 --> 00:26:17.600\nWhat do you look at? How do you run your joint? What reports do you have? Like,\n\n595\n00:26:17.600 --> 00:26:18.160\nyou know,\n\n596\n00:26:18.160 --> 00:26:21.840\nwhat do you, what do you, and you could see instantly that a lot of people step\n\n597\n00:26:21.840 --> 00:26:22.800\nup right away and they\n\n598\n00:26:22.800 --> 00:26:25.970\nwant to build a great company. They tell you what's wrong. And a lot of people,\n\n599\n00:26:25.970 --> 00:26:27.280\nthey defend themselves,\n\n600\n00:26:27.280 --> 00:26:31.440\nthey, they're black. They, they, they won't look at the numbers the right way.\n\n601\n00:26:31.440 --> 00:26:31.840\nThey look at them\n\n602\n00:26:31.840 --> 00:26:34.620\nthe way that makes them look better, which of course is, you know, is a\n\n603\n00:26:34.620 --> 00:26:35.920\ndisaster for any business\n\n604\n00:26:35.920 --> 00:26:41.390\nand who's open. But the first thing is walk in their shoes. So and go to the\n\n605\n00:26:41.390 --> 00:26:42.320\nbelly of the beast.\n\n606\n00:26:42.320 --> 00:26:45.980\nSo when I remember travelers, the insurance company, I went to go get to know\n\n607\n00:26:45.980 --> 00:26:47.120\nall the actuaries and\n\n608\n00:26:47.120 --> 00:26:51.110\nall the underwriters, you know, when we, when we bought Simon Brothers, I put\n\n609\n00:26:51.110 --> 00:26:52.000\nan office on the\n\n610\n00:26:52.000 --> 00:26:55.460\ntrading floor, the fixed income train for our, the belly of the beast right\n\n611\n00:26:55.460 --> 00:26:56.960\nthere. They were shocked.\n\n612\n00:26:56.960 --> 00:27:00.240\nI started going through all their trades and all their positions and take them\n\n613\n00:27:00.240 --> 00:27:01.280\nto dinner and\n\n614\n00:27:01.280 --> 00:27:07.790\nand then start fixing it. I never, we never, I'm looking back. We never said we\n\n615\n00:27:07.790 --> 00:27:08.160\n're going to do\n\n616\n00:27:08.160 --> 00:27:13.310\na transformation. We just sat down with the business heads and said, what do\n\n617\n00:27:13.310 --> 00:27:14.240\nyou do? What are you doing?\n\n618\n00:27:14.240 --> 00:27:16.250\nWhat are we going to build? What are you going to grow? How can we not go in\n\n619\n00:27:16.250 --> 00:27:16.880\nthe sales force?\n\n620\n00:27:16.880 --> 00:27:19.680\nHow come we're not doing this? How come this company is doing better? Should we\n\n621\n00:27:19.680 --> 00:27:20.240\nshould we fix\n\n622\n00:27:20.240 --> 00:27:24.400\nthe technology or expenses too high? You know, the bureaucracy slowing us down\n\n623\n00:27:24.400 --> 00:27:25.280\nand then just start\n\n624\n00:27:25.280 --> 00:27:30.400\nworking at man just over and over and over and and of course, you know,\n\n625\n00:27:30.400 --> 00:27:31.360\nstrategy is important,\n\n626\n00:27:31.360 --> 00:27:35.750\nbut execution often is more important. They already existing companies that\n\n627\n00:27:35.750 --> 00:27:36.720\nusually were\n\n628\n00:27:36.720 --> 00:27:41.440\ndoing something poorly and we got to buy them rather cheaply and we basically\n\n629\n00:27:41.440 --> 00:27:41.840\nfixed them. It\n\n630\n00:27:41.840 --> 00:27:46.640\ndoesn't mean we did the best strategy. You know, we tried to do that, but and\n\n631\n00:27:46.640 --> 00:27:48.320\nand you learn,\n\n632\n00:27:48.320 --> 00:27:52.240\nyou learn their cultures are different. You learn you shouldn't, you should\n\n633\n00:27:52.240 --> 00:27:53.120\nnever go into another\n\n634\n00:27:53.120 --> 00:27:59.810\nplace and just impose the way you do stuff on them. You know, because there's\n\n635\n00:27:59.810 --> 00:27:59.840\nthere,\n\n636\n00:27:59.840 --> 00:28:03.300\nthey exist for different reasons, you know, and the different regulations and\n\n637\n00:28:03.300 --> 00:28:04.400\nlaws and requirements\n\n638\n00:28:04.400 --> 00:28:09.420\nand you're hiring different types of people and but one thing that I learned,\n\n639\n00:28:09.420 --> 00:28:10.480\nall companies,\n\n640\n00:28:10.480 --> 00:28:14.710\na lot of companies have bureaucracy, bureaucracy is always growing. There's\n\n641\n00:28:14.710 --> 00:28:15.680\nalways politicians,\n\n642\n00:28:15.680 --> 00:28:19.680\nthey're always making it worse and they're always waiting to see are you going\n\n643\n00:28:19.680 --> 00:28:20.720\nto be one of those\n\n644\n00:28:20.720 --> 00:28:23.760\nwhere the politics is going to own you. So a lot of those companies, the\n\n645\n00:28:23.760 --> 00:28:24.960\ncorporate staff\n\n646\n00:28:24.960 --> 00:28:28.240\ntried to own the bosses on the floor. Oh, we'll take care of that. Don't worry,\n\n647\n00:28:28.240 --> 00:28:30.800\nyou're pretty little ahead. There's no reason you go to the sales conference.\n\n648\n00:28:30.800 --> 00:28:31.440\nYou know, I remember\n\n649\n00:28:31.440 --> 00:28:34.800\nI got to bank one. You know, I, when I found out they're having some major\n\n650\n00:28:34.800 --> 00:28:35.760\nsales conferences,\n\n651\n00:28:35.760 --> 00:28:40.080\nthey didn't even tell me about it. I mean, I was living. I had to go, you know,\n\n652\n00:28:40.080 --> 00:28:41.120\nand so you learn\n\n653\n00:28:41.120 --> 00:28:44.730\nthe cultures are quite different and then you start working it. And then also\n\n654\n00:28:44.730 --> 00:28:45.520\nwhen you build\n\n655\n00:28:45.520 --> 00:28:50.200\nthings like, you know, if you, if you decide that their systems are terrible in\n\n656\n00:28:50.200 --> 00:28:51.120\nsome area,\n\n657\n00:28:51.120 --> 00:28:53.680\nyou don't go in and say, your system is terrible. I keep putting it in that\n\n658\n00:28:53.680 --> 00:28:54.480\nstupid. I'm going to\n\n659\n00:28:54.480 --> 00:28:57.700\nredo this for you and get McKinsey or someone to come and rewrite it. You form\n\n660\n00:28:57.700 --> 00:28:58.400\na team inside\n\n661\n00:28:58.400 --> 00:29:02.090\nto do it. You bring in some outside people. So by the time it's built for the\n\n662\n00:29:02.090 --> 00:29:03.280\nstores, the restaurants,\n\n663\n00:29:03.280 --> 00:29:07.680\nthey built it. You just nurtured it. And it came out of a way that everyone\n\n664\n00:29:07.680 --> 00:29:08.400\nthought was the best\n\n665\n00:29:08.400 --> 00:29:13.130\nway. And then you and I've learned all the tricks along the way to figure out\n\n666\n00:29:13.130 --> 00:29:14.480\nthe politicians, the\n\n667\n00:29:14.480 --> 00:29:18.960\nBS's, it's the meeting after the meeting. You know, it's coming and presenting\n\n668\n00:29:18.960 --> 00:29:19.760\nnumbers in a different\n\n669\n00:29:19.760 --> 00:29:23.970\nway than the company presents the numbers. It's backing out allocated expense\n\n670\n00:29:23.970 --> 00:29:25.040\nwhen that includes\n\n671\n00:29:25.040 --> 00:29:31.430\nrent, you know, or basic stuff. It's the people who, who you can see in the\n\n672\n00:29:31.430 --> 00:29:32.880\nroom, no one will\n\n673\n00:29:32.880 --> 00:29:36.980\ndisagree with them. It's the people who when they go on the road, you know, and\n\n674\n00:29:36.980 --> 00:29:38.400\nyou start asking the\n\n675\n00:29:38.400 --> 00:29:42.240\nloan officers or salespeople or branch managers, hey, what can we do better?\n\n676\n00:29:42.240 --> 00:29:43.760\nAnd they're kind of\n\n677\n00:29:43.760 --> 00:29:46.880\ntwisting in their chair. They don't like the fact the branch managers saying,\n\n678\n00:29:46.880 --> 00:29:47.920\nwell, you know,\n\n679\n00:29:47.920 --> 00:29:51.520\nwhy can I change that my own hours? Why can I do this? And why can't I do that?\n\n680\n00:29:51.520 --> 00:29:53.280\nAnd they get upset.\n\n681\n00:29:53.280 --> 00:29:56.560\nAnd so you're seeing this all the time, these not good matters. Some are bad,\n\n682\n00:29:56.560 --> 00:29:57.200\nsome are political,\n\n683\n00:29:57.200 --> 00:30:03.190\nsome are just rigid. And so you learn along the way how to do all those things.\n\n684\n00:30:03.190 --> 00:30:04.240\nGet the numbers\n\n685\n00:30:04.240 --> 00:30:09.010\nright, you know, report it right, share it with all the management team. So a\n\n686\n00:30:09.010 --> 00:30:10.800\nlot of lessons I got\n\n687\n00:30:10.800 --> 00:30:14.800\nfrom doing that. I mean, I used to go, you know, literally sign checks, some of\n\n688\n00:30:14.800 --> 00:30:15.840\nthese companies.\n\n689\n00:30:15.840 --> 00:30:19.680\nI look at every vendor thing for a month or two to see how they're spending\n\n690\n00:30:19.680 --> 00:30:20.240\nmoney. And then you\n\n691\n00:30:20.240 --> 00:30:22.820\nbe shocked. They're buying stuff. They have no idea what they're buying, you\n\n692\n00:30:22.820 --> 00:30:24.400\nknow, agreeing. They're\n\n693\n00:30:24.400 --> 00:30:28.150\nthey're signing, okay, okay with me, but they don't even know what it is. And\n\n694\n00:30:28.150 --> 00:30:28.480\nmeanwhile,\n\n695\n00:30:28.480 --> 00:30:31.920\nthe person responsible for is not getting the bill. You know, I mean, I go on\n\n696\n00:30:31.920 --> 00:30:32.720\nand on and on about\n\n697\n00:30:32.720 --> 00:30:36.800\nthe things you learned by going through these. Hey, everyone, it's Kula. We'll\n\n698\n00:30:36.800 --> 00:30:37.440\nget back to the\n\n699\n00:30:37.440 --> 00:30:41.040\ninterview in just a second before we do though. I have a question for you.\n\n700\n00:30:41.040 --> 00:30:46.770\nHave you downloaded the how leaders lead app on your iPhone? If you haven't,\n\n701\n00:30:46.770 --> 00:30:47.840\ntake 20 seconds\n\n702\n00:30:47.840 --> 00:30:51.750\nright now, go to the app store, search for how leaders lead and download the\n\n703\n00:30:51.750 --> 00:30:52.800\nhow leaders lead\n\n704\n00:30:52.800 --> 00:30:56.650\napp in the app every day. You'll get a two minute video that'll give you a\n\n705\n00:30:56.650 --> 00:30:57.920\nleadership inside from\n\n706\n00:30:57.920 --> 00:31:01.810\none of our amazing guests for our podcast to inspire you and to really get your\n\n707\n00:31:01.810 --> 00:31:02.720\nmind in the right\n\n708\n00:31:02.720 --> 00:31:06.850\nplace before you start your workday. So go to the app store, start our leaders\n\n709\n00:31:06.850 --> 00:31:07.760\nlead, download the\n\n710\n00:31:07.760 --> 00:31:11.540\nhow leaders lead app and start your day every day with two minutes of\n\n711\n00:31:11.540 --> 00:31:13.360\nleadership wisdom. It'll take\n\n712\n00:31:13.360 --> 00:31:17.790\n20 seconds. Go to the app store, download the app and you'll be able to watch\n\n713\n00:31:17.790 --> 00:31:18.400\nevery day,\n\n714\n00:31:18.400 --> 00:31:23.560\njust like me, the leadership insight from how leaders lead. I've watched you in\n\n715\n00:31:23.560 --> 00:31:24.800\naction and,\n\n716\n00:31:24.800 --> 00:31:30.190\nyou know, you clearly have high performance standards, but you have a ton of\n\n717\n00:31:30.190 --> 00:31:31.040\nheart. I mean,\n\n718\n00:31:31.040 --> 00:31:35.710\nyou know, and you're right. That's why people basically do want to work with\n\n719\n00:31:35.710 --> 00:31:37.600\nyou and stay with\n\n720\n00:31:37.600 --> 00:31:41.170\nyou. And you said, you know, as you were building, you know, all these\n\n721\n00:31:41.170 --> 00:31:42.720\ncompanies with Sandy Wild,\n\n722\n00:31:42.720 --> 00:31:46.640\nyou said he didn't really mentor you. You learned a lot by watching him and\n\n723\n00:31:46.640 --> 00:31:48.720\nthen applying what you\n\n724\n00:31:48.720 --> 00:31:53.360\nsaw to how you would go about leading. But you put a lot of heart into those\n\n725\n00:31:53.360 --> 00:31:54.480\nbusinesses and then\n\n726\n00:31:55.280 --> 00:31:58.920\nSandy ends up, you know, terminating you, you know, you get fired by the guy,\n\n727\n00:31:58.920 --> 00:32:00.800\nyou know, and that had\n\n728\n00:32:00.800 --> 00:32:04.460\nto be traumatic, especially when you've given so much of your heart to those\n\n729\n00:32:04.460 --> 00:32:05.520\ncompanies, you know,\n\n730\n00:32:05.520 --> 00:32:11.680\nwhat sticks you with you the most about that experience that you've tried to\n\n731\n00:32:11.680 --> 00:32:12.560\ntake forward\n\n732\n00:32:12.560 --> 00:32:19.630\nand the way how you lead. So our relationship deteriorated from 1994 to 1998.\n\n733\n00:32:19.630 --> 00:32:20.320\nWhen we did city,\n\n734\n00:32:21.360 --> 00:32:27.280\nhe set up a thing which I vehemently disagreed with, which was, you know, while\n\n735\n00:32:27.280 --> 00:32:27.600\nthey gave me\n\n736\n00:32:27.600 --> 00:32:32.790\nthe title president, which I didn't ask for, and he had told John Reed, Jamie,\n\n737\n00:32:32.790 --> 00:32:33.200\nhe's pushing me\n\n738\n00:32:33.200 --> 00:32:36.990\nthought, which I never did. I don't believe in fake titles. I was going to run\n\n739\n00:32:36.990 --> 00:32:37.600\nthe Global\n\n740\n00:32:37.600 --> 00:32:40.260\nInvestment Bank and then they changed it to the be tri-heads of the Global\n\n741\n00:32:40.260 --> 00:32:41.280\nInvestment Bank. So\n\n742\n00:32:41.280 --> 00:32:46.140\nthis is a global complex business. I was like, try heads? Are you kidding me?\n\n743\n00:32:46.140 --> 00:32:46.640\nSo they had\n\n744\n00:32:48.160 --> 00:32:52.960\ntri-heads and co-heads of almost every division reporting to co-heads, Sandy\n\n745\n00:32:52.960 --> 00:32:53.600\nand John. So just\n\n746\n00:32:53.600 --> 00:32:57.110\ntake the complexity of that. And I told them this is going to destroy the\n\n747\n00:32:57.110 --> 00:32:58.800\ncompany. And I said,\n\n748\n00:32:58.800 --> 00:33:02.580\nyou guys, John Reed wasn't used to being talked to like this by so on. So he\n\n749\n00:33:02.580 --> 00:33:03.520\nliked me, but he thought\n\n750\n00:33:03.520 --> 00:33:08.400\nit was a little too aggressive. I said, this will destroy the company. And the\n\n751\n00:33:08.400 --> 00:33:09.040\nsecond we announced\n\n752\n00:33:09.040 --> 00:33:12.600\nthis, people would be digging trenches, stock-plined ammunition to see who's\n\n753\n00:33:12.600 --> 00:33:13.520\ngoing to win these\n\n754\n00:33:13.520 --> 00:33:18.150\nbattles. Sandy, John, Jamie, this, this one, this. I said, but the time you\n\n755\n00:33:18.150 --> 00:33:19.120\njoke is figured out,\n\n756\n00:33:19.120 --> 00:33:22.130\nwe're going to lose a lot of good people. And I actually was the first casual\n\n757\n00:33:22.130 --> 00:33:23.440\nteam. Sandy called me up.\n\n758\n00:33:23.440 --> 00:33:30.320\nWe have, I had 100 kids at my house recruiting for Solomon Smith Barney. And we\n\n759\n00:33:30.320 --> 00:33:30.480\nhad a\n\n760\n00:33:30.480 --> 00:33:33.440\nmagazine of four. He said, can you come at 12? I said, no, I'm having a big\n\n761\n00:33:33.440 --> 00:33:34.880\nbuffet breakfast for\n\n762\n00:33:34.880 --> 00:33:38.540\nthese people. He said, it's important. So I go up there, I go in a room like\n\n763\n00:33:38.540 --> 00:33:38.880\nthis.\n\n764\n00:33:38.880 --> 00:33:42.540\nSandy and John are there. They say, make a bunch of changes. And they list a\n\n765\n00:33:42.540 --> 00:33:43.840\nchange A, change B,\n\n766\n00:33:43.840 --> 00:33:49.920\nand change C as it want you to resign. Which I said, okay. So I knew the game.\n\n767\n00:33:49.920 --> 00:33:50.160\nThey already\n\n768\n00:33:50.160 --> 00:33:54.210\ntalked to the board. They already lined it up. I was actually shocked about A\n\n769\n00:33:54.210 --> 00:33:55.120\nand B. I was not\n\n770\n00:33:55.120 --> 00:33:59.140\nshocked about C. And I should have known that, you know, and Sandy, you know, I\n\n771\n00:33:59.140 --> 00:33:59.600\nlook, you've got to\n\n772\n00:33:59.600 --> 00:34:04.090\nask them the motivation that John Reed wanted to leave. I was going to be the\n\n773\n00:34:04.090 --> 00:34:05.520\nnatural successor.\n\n774\n00:34:05.520 --> 00:34:08.960\nThat's one of the reasons John wanted me at the company. Sandy convinced John\n\n775\n00:34:08.960 --> 00:34:09.760\nthat if he and\n\n776\n00:34:09.760 --> 00:34:13.210\nit's more important, these two guys get along. And I think a lot of people\n\n777\n00:34:13.210 --> 00:34:13.840\nthink a lot of the\n\n778\n00:34:13.840 --> 00:34:16.680\nboard members told me, because I knew them all. A lot of them is that, you know\n\n779\n00:34:16.680 --> 00:34:18.000\n, he, that if you\n\n780\n00:34:18.000 --> 00:34:23.150\nstayed, Sandy would had to go and he didn't want to go. And obviously, I think\n\n781\n00:34:23.150 --> 00:34:24.160\nthe board made a\n\n782\n00:34:24.160 --> 00:34:26.760\nmistake. And this is where boards should do the right thing and not the thing\n\n783\n00:34:26.760 --> 00:34:27.520\nthat makes the boss\n\n784\n00:34:27.520 --> 00:34:32.930\nhappy. Lessons learned are in relationship gone south a lot before that. I\n\n785\n00:34:32.930 --> 00:34:34.160\ncalled him up after a\n\n786\n00:34:34.160 --> 00:34:38.630\nyear. He didn't call me. I called him up after a year and said, you know, same\n\n787\n00:34:38.630 --> 00:34:39.280\nas time we got\n\n788\n00:34:39.280 --> 00:34:43.480\ntogether. He treated me, treated me terribly in the way out. Literally, they\n\n789\n00:34:43.480 --> 00:34:44.240\nthrew him on the\n\n790\n00:34:44.240 --> 00:34:46.770\nstreet. Like, they gave me an office and then called me up right before\n\n791\n00:34:46.770 --> 00:34:47.680\nChristmas. You got to\n\n792\n00:34:47.680 --> 00:34:50.650\nleave the office. He said, well, why? They said, well, we're not going to give\n\n793\n00:34:50.650 --> 00:34:51.440\npresidents of the\n\n794\n00:34:51.440 --> 00:34:55.070\ncompany offices anymore. I said, yeah, but you already have five X presidents\n\n795\n00:34:55.070 --> 00:34:55.840\nand vice chairman\n\n796\n00:34:55.840 --> 00:35:00.000\nof the offices. They said, well, this moment going forward, not you. I said,\n\n797\n00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:00.960\nreally? And they said,\n\n798\n00:35:00.960 --> 00:35:04.980\nyeah, and you have to lead by December 30th. Anyway, so a city a year later, I\n\n799\n00:35:04.980 --> 00:35:06.080\nwalked in and he\n\n800\n00:35:06.080 --> 00:35:09.730\nwanted to do it the four seasons. He was nervous. I was not. I said to him, say\n\n801\n00:35:09.730 --> 00:35:10.400\n, I'm going to talk\n\n802\n00:35:10.400 --> 00:35:15.770\njust a minute about the past. I don't think you did the right thing for Citib\n\n803\n00:35:15.770 --> 00:35:17.920\nank. But I want you to\n\n804\n00:35:17.920 --> 00:35:22.200\nknow that I made a lot of mistakes. And when it was 60, 40 or 46, it doesn't\n\n805\n00:35:22.200 --> 00:35:23.200\nreally matter. And\n\n806\n00:35:23.200 --> 00:35:26.930\nI listed some of my mistakes. And some of my mistakes were lessons, you know,\n\n807\n00:35:26.930 --> 00:35:28.000\nforever. Like,\n\n808\n00:35:28.000 --> 00:35:31.640\nI acted some of the things I did. I acted out of anger. I was so angry about\n\n809\n00:35:31.640 --> 00:35:32.160\nsome of the stupid\n\n810\n00:35:32.160 --> 00:35:35.950\nthings. It just flew out of me sometimes. And as you know, I thought that\n\n811\n00:35:35.950 --> 00:35:36.880\nalmost always backfires.\n\n812\n00:35:36.880 --> 00:35:40.970\nIt doesn't matter whether you right or wrong. And so I thought, you know, you\n\n813\n00:35:40.970 --> 00:35:41.680\nlearned that some,\n\n814\n00:35:41.680 --> 00:35:46.650\nand you've seen this too, where some people, it just enough isn't enough. And\n\n815\n00:35:46.650 --> 00:35:47.760\nit's not about\n\n816\n00:35:47.760 --> 00:35:51.400\nbeing proud of the beautiful thing you built is being about, you know, what\n\n817\n00:35:51.400 --> 00:35:52.160\ndoes it mean for you,\n\n818\n00:35:52.160 --> 00:35:58.720\nas look for you and ultimately destroyed the company. After you got terminated,\n\n819\n00:35:58.720 --> 00:35:59.200\nI remember\n\n820\n00:35:59.200 --> 00:36:06.320\nyou picked up boxing. What did that do for you? So what happened was I went,\n\n821\n00:36:06.320 --> 00:36:06.640\nthey asked me,\n\n822\n00:36:06.640 --> 00:36:10.420\nwould you want to do press that night? And I said, yeah, I want to do that from\n\n823\n00:36:10.420 --> 00:36:10.880\nhome.\n\n824\n00:36:10.880 --> 00:36:14.470\nDo you want to see the press? I said, yes. I met the senior team. I wish them\n\n825\n00:36:14.470 --> 00:36:15.280\nall the best.\n\n826\n00:36:15.280 --> 00:36:20.880\nThat night, maybe 50 or 100 people came to my home. You know, and they said,\n\n827\n00:36:20.880 --> 00:36:21.840\ndon't tell us any.\n\n828\n00:36:21.840 --> 00:36:26.000\nAnd it was like going your own way. They were toasty me. And my net worth, not\n\n829\n00:36:26.000 --> 00:36:26.720\nmy self-worth,\n\n830\n00:36:26.720 --> 00:36:31.920\nthat was involved. So I never, I never felt bad. Some people outside treated me\n\n831\n00:36:31.920 --> 00:36:32.560\nlike a leper,\n\n832\n00:36:32.560 --> 00:36:35.250\nlike stay away from the sky. And other people like literally I'd be running\n\n833\n00:36:35.250 --> 00:36:35.920\nthrough the park.\n\n834\n00:36:35.920 --> 00:36:40.000\nYay, diamond, you showed them. I was like, well, I got myself fired.\n\n835\n00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:46.090\nBut I immediately kicked me out right away. So all of a sudden, you're working\n\n836\n00:36:46.090 --> 00:36:46.640\n80 hours a week\n\n837\n00:36:46.640 --> 00:36:50.610\nto zero. So I was like, what the hell am I going to do? So I made a list of\n\n838\n00:36:50.610 --> 00:36:52.000\nstuff. So I bought like\n\n839\n00:36:52.000 --> 00:36:55.280\nliterally, I literally went to the bookstore, I bought like 30 or 40 books. And\n\n840\n00:36:55.280 --> 00:36:56.560\nI really instead\n\n841\n00:36:56.560 --> 00:36:58.850\nof reading the paper the morning for an hour and 15 minutes, it was two and a\n\n842\n00:36:58.850 --> 00:37:01.120\nhalf. And then I\n\n843\n00:37:01.120 --> 00:37:04.270\nmade a list of those things I want to do visit my brother in Denmark. I drove\n\n844\n00:37:04.270 --> 00:37:05.120\nacross country by\n\n845\n00:37:05.120 --> 00:37:09.820\nmyself. I took my friend doing boxing at a hall in the wall gym downtown. And\n\n846\n00:37:09.820 --> 00:37:10.400\nso I did all those\n\n847\n00:37:10.400 --> 00:37:13.270\nthings, you know, and the only thing that was on the list, I think I did not do\n\n848\n00:37:13.270 --> 00:37:13.920\nis climb, kill\n\n849\n00:37:13.920 --> 00:37:17.020\nthem in JARL. I took my family in a long trip to Europe, you know, luxury\n\n850\n00:37:17.020 --> 00:37:18.080\nleisure type of trip.\n\n851\n00:37:18.080 --> 00:37:23.200\nTook them on RV trips and I was thinking about what I wanted to do. You know, I\n\n852\n00:37:23.200 --> 00:37:23.840\nwasn't,\n\n853\n00:37:23.840 --> 00:37:27.120\nyou know, I mean, I was on your board. So it was fun for me.\n\n854\n00:37:27.120 --> 00:37:32.560\nYeah, well, I remember, you know, that that at that time, you agreed to go on\n\n855\n00:37:32.560 --> 00:37:33.600\nthe young board. And\n\n856\n00:37:33.600 --> 00:37:37.440\nI remember Andy Pearson, who we've talked about a little bit, he was talking\n\n857\n00:37:37.440 --> 00:37:38.320\nabout putting this\n\n858\n00:37:38.320 --> 00:37:42.790\nboard together. And he says, you know, you got to get this young whipper sn\n\n859\n00:37:42.790 --> 00:37:43.840\napper, you know,\n\n860\n00:37:43.840 --> 00:37:47.120\nJamie Diamond to come on the board, you're going to be around for a long time.\n\n861\n00:37:47.120 --> 00:37:47.760\nYou and him would be\n\n862\n00:37:47.760 --> 00:37:51.780\na great team. And boy, was he right. And what'd you learn just serving on the\n\n863\n00:37:51.780 --> 00:37:52.880\nyoung board? Because\n\n864\n00:37:52.880 --> 00:37:58.320\nI saw such a different business than, than the financial world.\n\n865\n00:37:58.320 --> 00:38:02.190\nYeah, well, so first of all, I think it's great to see how someone else runs it\n\n866\n00:38:02.190 --> 00:38:02.960\n. I love talking to\n\n867\n00:38:02.960 --> 00:38:06.040\nyours. How do you run your joint? Because a lot of CEOs run it differently. And\n\n868\n00:38:06.040 --> 00:38:07.040\nthey're all good.\n\n869\n00:38:07.040 --> 00:38:09.920\nSome are terrible. But like, how do you run it? What do you do? What do you\n\n870\n00:38:09.920 --> 00:38:10.640\nspend your day? How\n\n871\n00:38:10.640 --> 00:38:13.800\nmuch fun do you have? You know, like, and it's the same with the board. Like\n\n872\n00:38:13.800 --> 00:38:14.480\nboards are like\n\n873\n00:38:14.480 --> 00:38:18.990\njuries, man. They they could be, I've dealt with tons of boards and they could\n\n874\n00:38:18.990 --> 00:38:20.000\nbe bureaucratic.\n\n875\n00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:23.890\nThey could be politicized. But Andy, as you know, put together like one of the\n\n876\n00:38:23.890 --> 00:38:24.720\nbest boards of all\n\n877\n00:38:24.720 --> 00:38:28.920\ntime, you know, Ken Lando was on the board and Bob Ulrich from Target, who, you\n\n878\n00:38:28.920 --> 00:38:29.360\nknow, was a great\n\n879\n00:38:29.360 --> 00:38:38.320\ncompany. John Weinberg had run Goldman Sachs and Bob Holland. And, and he ran\n\n880\n00:38:38.320 --> 00:38:39.680\nit. I mean, Andy,\n\n881\n00:38:39.680 --> 00:38:44.800\nAndy was, I still would say the best to watch of anyone I've ever seen about\n\n882\n00:38:44.800 --> 00:38:45.520\nhow he just ran the\n\n883\n00:38:45.520 --> 00:38:48.800\nmeeting. You know, all your guys would come present and how they're doing here.\n\n884\n00:38:48.800 --> 00:38:49.440\nAnd he was,\n\n885\n00:38:49.440 --> 00:38:53.000\nand he always had a very good way of saying, that's not exactly where it works.\n\n886\n00:38:53.000 --> 00:38:53.440\nI forgot how\n\n887\n00:38:53.440 --> 00:38:57.290\nexactly he did it. But it wasn't waste of time, got right to the point, was\n\n888\n00:38:57.290 --> 00:38:57.920\nnever rude,\n\n889\n00:38:58.480 --> 00:39:02.720\ntough, but never rude. Always evaluating the people, how they thought about a\n\n890\n00:39:02.720 --> 00:39:03.120\nproblem,\n\n891\n00:39:03.120 --> 00:39:05.490\nhow they thought about an issue, how they attacked a problem. You know, you\n\n892\n00:39:05.490 --> 00:39:06.640\nguys had tons of problems\n\n893\n00:39:06.640 --> 00:39:09.730\nwhen we were there. And you know, each one, how you attacked it, you know, you\n\n894\n00:39:09.730 --> 00:39:11.520\nhad the GM, the,\n\n895\n00:39:11.520 --> 00:39:15.960\nthe GMS problem, then the distributor went bankrupt and, you know, all these\n\n896\n00:39:15.960 --> 00:39:17.120\nthings. But the real,\n\n897\n00:39:17.120 --> 00:39:20.880\nyou learn life, how do people deal with problems? The board was completely open\n\n898\n00:39:20.880 --> 00:39:21.120\n.\n\n899\n00:39:21.120 --> 00:39:25.820\nIt was a lot of fun. We went to taste your foods and you always took us to\n\n900\n00:39:25.820 --> 00:39:26.480\nbranches,\n\n901\n00:39:26.480 --> 00:39:31.120\njust restaurants. And you just learn how people think, you know, and even if\n\n902\n00:39:31.120 --> 00:39:31.600\nyou don't join\n\n903\n00:39:31.600 --> 00:39:34.410\nanother board, I'm not in the board now, I tell people it's a really good thing\n\n904\n00:39:34.410 --> 00:39:34.960\nto see how other\n\n905\n00:39:34.960 --> 00:39:38.880\npeople do things because I go to anything I go to where other CEOs are there,\n\n906\n00:39:38.880 --> 00:39:39.280\nyou know,\n\n907\n00:39:39.280 --> 00:39:42.080\nyou know, the business round table or business council stuff that you've done.\n\n908\n00:39:42.080 --> 00:39:46.640\nI'm taking notes when I hear someone did X and that's a neat idea.\n\n909\n00:39:46.640 --> 00:39:51.920\nWhy don't we do it? Matter of fact, at my board, I still do since we last met.\n\n910\n00:39:52.800 --> 00:39:56.720\nSo you did it every board meeting and I've been doing it. Every board meeting\n\n911\n00:39:56.720 --> 00:39:57.520\nsince bank one.\n\n912\n00:39:57.520 --> 00:40:03.010\nI still do it today. And it was your idea, like how you, and for those on the\n\n913\n00:40:03.010 --> 00:40:03.360\npodcast,\n\n914\n00:40:03.360 --> 00:40:07.600\nit was telling the board honestly everything important since you last met good,\n\n915\n00:40:07.600 --> 00:40:08.800\nbad, ugly.\n\n916\n00:40:08.800 --> 00:40:12.600\nIt could be the product, the food, the tasting, the profits, the China business\n\n917\n00:40:12.600 --> 00:40:12.720\n,\n\n918\n00:40:12.720 --> 00:40:17.910\nan honest assessment from the CEO, like I said, the good, the bad, the ugly, as\n\n919\n00:40:17.910 --> 00:40:18.960\na great tool.\n\n920\n00:40:18.960 --> 00:40:23.360\nI still type it out, you know, and I still keep it. And in fact, I was speaking\n\n921\n00:40:23.360 --> 00:40:24.400\nsay about having\n\n922\n00:40:24.400 --> 00:40:28.080\nsome of my, this people run the business use doing it themselves since we last\n\n923\n00:40:28.080 --> 00:40:29.440\nmet as opposed to\n\n924\n00:40:29.440 --> 00:40:34.000\na presentation, you know, and so I still learn things from tons of other people\n\n925\n00:40:34.000 --> 00:40:34.720\n. I had to do things\n\n926\n00:40:34.720 --> 00:40:39.720\nbetter. So you were on the beach, as they say in finance terms, you didn't have\n\n927\n00:40:39.720 --> 00:40:40.160\nthe job,\n\n928\n00:40:40.160 --> 00:40:44.440\nyou come to the young board, you're working on that. What process did you use?\n\n929\n00:40:44.440 --> 00:40:45.280\nAnd what\n\n930\n00:40:45.280 --> 00:40:49.600\nyou learned from it as you worked your way into the CEO job at bank one?\n\n931\n00:40:49.600 --> 00:40:55.840\nI was very deliberate. Okay. So I was fired in December, but I had to negotiate\n\n932\n00:40:55.840 --> 00:40:56.240\nout. It took me\n\n933\n00:40:56.240 --> 00:40:59.840\nto March, April. So I decided I'm going to take the summer off, take the kids\n\n934\n00:40:59.840 --> 00:41:00.960\naround the world and\n\n935\n00:41:00.960 --> 00:41:06.300\nstart kind of really thinking about September. But I did take a lot of phone\n\n936\n00:41:06.300 --> 00:41:07.280\ncalls. I gave,\n\n937\n00:41:07.280 --> 00:41:11.310\nI took everyone respectfully somewhere you could call almost insulting what\n\n938\n00:41:11.310 --> 00:41:12.000\nthey were offering me.\n\n939\n00:41:13.200 --> 00:41:16.820\nI made sure the head owners knew I wanted to work. You know, the major folks\n\n940\n00:41:16.820 --> 00:41:17.440\nout there.\n\n941\n00:41:17.440 --> 00:41:21.280\nWhen I came back in September, I was always polite and responsive to everyone.\n\n942\n00:41:21.280 --> 00:41:27.280\nI had an office. I started seeing people all the time and I had ideas. I'm\n\n943\n00:41:27.280 --> 00:41:27.680\ngoing to start my own\n\n944\n00:41:27.680 --> 00:41:31.480\nmerchant bank. I wrote documents. I spoke to people. I started working with\n\n945\n00:41:31.480 --> 00:41:32.240\npeople, gained\n\n946\n00:41:32.240 --> 00:41:35.760\npartners, kind of wild in the idea. Didn't love it. I started, I could have\n\n947\n00:41:35.760 --> 00:41:37.600\njust been my own investor,\n\n948\n00:41:37.600 --> 00:41:41.400\nstarted talking to me. I went to see Canlon and go and what is it like? I didn\n\n949\n00:41:41.400 --> 00:41:42.320\n't love it. I went to\n\n950\n00:41:43.200 --> 00:41:47.860\nI thought about just teaching and writing, you know, fundamentally. And you\n\n951\n00:41:47.860 --> 00:41:49.520\nknow, I realized I was\n\n952\n00:41:49.520 --> 00:41:53.430\nready. I wasn't done with the big game yet. And I had a lot of offers. Some\n\n953\n00:41:53.430 --> 00:41:54.720\nwere CEO. Some was,\n\n954\n00:41:54.720 --> 00:41:59.450\nI was offered to run the global investment bank of one of the big European\n\n955\n00:41:59.450 --> 00:42:00.400\ninvestment banks.\n\n956\n00:42:00.400 --> 00:42:03.950\nI went there to see the people in London and had dinner with a bunch of them.\n\n957\n00:42:03.950 --> 00:42:04.800\nAnd after doing\n\n958\n00:42:04.800 --> 00:42:09.000\nI said, there's no way I'd work for these guys. I mean, Hank Greenberg called\n\n959\n00:42:09.000 --> 00:42:09.840\nme up at AIG,\n\n960\n00:42:10.480 --> 00:42:13.850\nyou know, and I said, going from Sandy Wild to Hank Greenberg, you'd have to\n\n961\n00:42:13.850 --> 00:42:15.120\nhave your head examined.\n\n962\n00:42:15.120 --> 00:42:21.760\nAnd Jeff Bezos, who I hit it off with in 1999, is looking for president. And he\n\n963\n00:42:21.760 --> 00:42:22.560\nand I hit it off.\n\n964\n00:42:22.560 --> 00:42:26.450\nI still talked to him. He's an outstanding guy. I just, it was just a bridge\n\n965\n00:42:26.450 --> 00:42:27.360\ntoo far for me.\n\n966\n00:42:27.360 --> 00:42:30.160\nI didn't necessarily fully understand the business. I had a movement company in\n\n967\n00:42:30.160 --> 00:42:30.960\nSeattle.\n\n968\n00:42:30.960 --> 00:42:33.960\nI love the idea of never putting a suit on it again. You're getting a houseboat\n\n969\n00:42:33.960 --> 00:42:34.480\nsomewhere.\n\n970\n00:42:34.480 --> 00:42:37.280\nAnd there are tons of others that people actually spoke to me about, but it\n\n971\n00:42:37.280 --> 00:42:37.920\ncame down\n\n972\n00:42:38.880 --> 00:42:45.680\nat the time to Home Depot and Bank One. And Home Depot, I love those people.\n\n973\n00:42:45.680 --> 00:42:50.440\nI thought Bernie Marcus, Arthur Blank, I went down the mountain running with\n\n974\n00:42:50.440 --> 00:42:54.240\nBlank and Ken Landgown,\n\n975\n00:42:54.240 --> 00:42:59.600\nknees, knees. But when I first met them, I said, just so you guys know,\n\n976\n00:42:59.600 --> 00:43:03.350\nbecause I want you to know this, until you called me, I'd never been in a Home\n\n977\n00:43:03.350 --> 00:43:03.760\nDepot.\n\n978\n00:43:03.760 --> 00:43:07.840\nI said, so it's not, this is not my natural habitat merchant. And they were\n\n979\n00:43:07.840 --> 00:43:08.240\nvery much like,\n\n980\n00:43:08.240 --> 00:43:10.980\nwe don't care about that. You'll learn. We want the guy at the heart and the\n\n981\n00:43:10.980 --> 00:43:12.400\nsoul and the way they\n\n982\n00:43:12.400 --> 00:43:17.300\nthink. And I went to storage with them and stuff like that. And I actually sho\n\n983\n00:43:17.300 --> 00:43:18.720\npped houses in Atlanta.\n\n984\n00:43:18.720 --> 00:43:24.100\nI mean, we were taking seriously, looked at school for the kids. And then Bank\n\n985\n00:43:24.100 --> 00:43:24.960\nOne was there. Bank\n\n986\n00:43:24.960 --> 00:43:28.930\nOne, as you know, is a troubled Midwestern bank and probably would have\n\n987\n00:43:28.930 --> 00:43:30.160\nsurprised people. I went\n\n988\n00:43:30.160 --> 00:43:34.970\nto it, but it was my natural habitat. When I look at a trading book or a loan\n\n989\n00:43:34.970 --> 00:43:35.840\nbook, I mean,\n\n990\n00:43:35.840 --> 00:43:39.600\nI'm used to, I wasn't used to all the business they had. Moving to Chicago is\n\n991\n00:43:39.600 --> 00:43:40.320\ngoing to be hard,\n\n992\n00:43:40.320 --> 00:43:46.320\nbut I wasn't done yet. And they offered me chairman and CEO and I decided I put\n\n993\n00:43:46.320 --> 00:43:47.120\nhalf my net worth\n\n994\n00:43:47.120 --> 00:43:51.990\ninto at the time. I was kind of, I tied my shoes to it. I was going to go with\n\n995\n00:43:51.990 --> 00:43:53.280\nthe ship or not.\n\n996\n00:43:53.280 --> 00:43:57.460\nAnd very much like we did with Sandy Wildback, a commercial McCrech and Primer\n\n997\n00:43:57.460 --> 00:43:57.520\nica,\n\n998\n00:43:57.520 --> 00:44:01.650\nbuild it, make it where you can, build something great. Don't cry, I was build\n\n999\n00:44:01.650 --> 00:44:02.640\nmilk. And I still,\n\n1000\n00:44:02.640 --> 00:44:06.180\nI still deal with a lot of CEOs who they complain about their own companies\n\n1001\n00:44:06.180 --> 00:44:06.960\nendlessly.\n\n1002\n00:44:06.960 --> 00:44:11.620\nAnd I always like, you know, put your pants on. I mean, just grow up. The world\n\n1003\n00:44:11.620 --> 00:44:12.800\nwas never perfect.\n\n1004\n00:44:12.800 --> 00:44:16.370\nYou would know what ever said they're going to hand you everything in a silver\n\n1005\n00:44:16.370 --> 00:44:16.880\nplatter.\n\n1006\n00:44:16.880 --> 00:44:21.890\nBusiness is tough. People disappoint you, you know, and so I decided to go for\n\n1007\n00:44:21.890 --> 00:44:22.320\nthat. They made\n\n1008\n00:44:22.320 --> 00:44:27.360\nme chairman, CEO. I put half my money in, moved to family. I called you up, got\n\n1009\n00:44:27.360 --> 00:44:28.400\nyou on the board.\n\n1010\n00:44:28.400 --> 00:44:33.120\nI needed some fresh blood on the board. That was a, that was a lot of fun\n\n1011\n00:44:33.120 --> 00:44:34.080\nwatching what you did\n\n1012\n00:44:34.080 --> 00:44:39.200\nthere. It was great. And, and then, you know, you, you turned around Bank one.\n\n1013\n00:44:39.200 --> 00:44:40.480\nIt was a great\n\n1014\n00:44:40.480 --> 00:44:48.080\nsuccess story. And JP Morgan Chase decides to, to come and acquire Bank one.\n\n1015\n00:44:48.080 --> 00:44:49.840\nWhat, what did you learn\n\n1016\n00:44:49.840 --> 00:44:56.880\norchestrating that with the, with the JP Morgan Chase CEO at the time, Bill\n\n1017\n00:44:56.880 --> 00:44:57.360\nHarrison.\n\n1018\n00:44:57.360 --> 00:45:02.800\nHow did you, how did you bring it all together? Yeah. So Bill Harrison had been\n\n1019\n00:45:02.800 --> 00:45:02.960\n,\n\n1020\n00:45:02.960 --> 00:45:08.180\nnot my direct banker, but I knew him from way, way back. And as you know, Bill\n\n1021\n00:45:08.180 --> 00:45:09.280\nis a real quality\n\n1022\n00:45:09.280 --> 00:45:17.100\nguy. And so we did that deal at the end of the summer of, of '04, 2004. But he\n\n1023\n00:45:17.100 --> 00:45:17.440\nand I\n\n1024\n00:45:17.440 --> 00:45:22.320\nhad started talking in '02 or '03. I'd go see him regularly. And I told you\n\n1025\n00:45:22.320 --> 00:45:23.600\nguys on the board\n\n1026\n00:45:23.600 --> 00:45:29.430\nthat, that there are two or three very natural merges for us. One was Fleet and\n\n1027\n00:45:29.430 --> 00:45:30.400\none was JP Morgan\n\n1028\n00:45:30.400 --> 00:45:34.580\nChase. And, and, uh, JP Morgan Chase fell by the wayside because he got too big\n\n1029\n00:45:34.580 --> 00:45:35.200\nand they bought\n\n1030\n00:45:35.200 --> 00:45:39.160\nChase and, but because Bank one did better and better and they were having some\n\n1031\n00:45:39.160 --> 00:45:40.240\ntough times,\n\n1032\n00:45:40.240 --> 00:45:44.320\nit kind of came in that target range again. And so I went to see Bill. Bill and\n\n1033\n00:45:44.320 --> 00:45:45.120\nI kept on talking.\n\n1034\n00:45:45.120 --> 00:45:48.810\nHe said to me at one point, you know, I can't do a deal now. My shareholders\n\n1035\n00:45:48.810 --> 00:45:49.760\nwill kill me,\n\n1036\n00:45:49.760 --> 00:45:54.490\nbut it's so natural. I don't have a successor really. You know, when you\n\n1037\n00:45:54.490 --> 00:45:56.240\npromise me that you will\n\n1038\n00:45:56.240 --> 00:45:59.740\ncall me if you're ever going to do something. And I told him, Bill, I cannot\n\n1039\n00:45:59.740 --> 00:46:00.880\npromise that. But\n\n1040\n00:46:00.880 --> 00:46:03.770\nI understand about the industrial logic and he and I started talking about the\n\n1041\n00:46:03.770 --> 00:46:04.640\nindustrial logic,\n\n1042\n00:46:04.640 --> 00:46:09.360\nthe people. Now, in reality, it was what it was called. He called it a merge of\n\n1043\n00:46:09.360 --> 00:46:10.000\nequals. We got\n\n1044\n00:46:10.000 --> 00:46:13.760\nthe premium, but we also got the control. If you remember correctly, I was\n\n1045\n00:46:13.760 --> 00:46:15.840\nordained to be the CO,\n\n1046\n00:46:15.840 --> 00:46:19.140\nliterally from day one. So I wasn't the CO from day one, but the board was\n\n1047\n00:46:19.140 --> 00:46:20.400\ngoing to be 50 50.\n\n1048\n00:46:20.400 --> 00:46:26.300\nAnd I was going to be the CEO in two years, unless 80, unless 75% of the board\n\n1049\n00:46:26.300 --> 00:46:26.880\nsaid no.\n\n1050\n00:46:26.880 --> 00:46:31.040\nSo that meant four of my directors have to vote against me. And you may\n\n1051\n00:46:31.040 --> 00:46:32.000\nremember the last minute,\n\n1052\n00:46:32.000 --> 00:46:34.830\nit was a little fight at the board, our board. You guys were a dinner at my\n\n1053\n00:46:34.830 --> 00:46:36.240\nhouse in Chicago.\n\n1054\n00:46:36.240 --> 00:46:39.490\nAnd you know, we had, well, I was a big part of that fight is a better fact.\n\n1055\n00:46:39.490 --> 00:46:40.160\nYeah, like,\n\n1056\n00:46:40.160 --> 00:46:43.520\nbut something like don't do the deal. You can't trust these New Yorkers.\n\n1057\n00:46:43.520 --> 00:46:48.400\nOh, you know, if Jamie can't be the CEO and day one, we can't do that. Well,\n\n1058\n00:46:48.400 --> 00:46:49.280\nthat was a good reason\n\n1059\n00:46:49.280 --> 00:46:54.240\nto keep the keep keep keep it in Chicago. They were coming up with all kinds of\n\n1060\n00:46:54.240 --> 00:46:54.800\nreasons. You\n\n1061\n00:46:54.800 --> 00:47:00.420\nknow, and I said, I said, look, if Jamie can't work with Bill Harrison for two\n\n1062\n00:47:00.420 --> 00:47:01.120\nyears and there's\n\n1063\n00:47:01.120 --> 00:47:06.720\nsomething wrong with Jamie Diamond. And they said, well, you remember, I'm not\n\n1064\n00:47:06.720 --> 00:47:07.040\ngoing to mention\n\n1065\n00:47:07.040 --> 00:47:11.030\nhis name, he said, but well, you've never been in a boardroom, you know, like\n\n1066\n00:47:11.030 --> 00:47:12.080\nthat, you're\n\n1067\n00:47:12.080 --> 00:47:15.470\nmissing something here. I said, well, I do have a whole lot of common sense.\n\n1068\n00:47:15.470 --> 00:47:16.160\nAnd you know, there's\n\n1069\n00:47:16.160 --> 00:47:21.200\na big fight. But anyway, the rest is history. Yeah, you're absolutely correct.\n\n1070\n00:47:21.200 --> 00:47:21.840\nAnd you make\n\n1071\n00:47:21.840 --> 00:47:25.200\na judgment call in life and that we all thought we could, I knew I could trust\n\n1072\n00:47:25.200 --> 00:47:26.320\nBill Harrison.\n\n1073\n00:47:26.320 --> 00:47:29.760\nAnd he wanted to leave, they needed a successor and they needed someone who's\n\n1074\n00:47:29.760 --> 00:47:30.640\ngoing to run it.\n\n1075\n00:47:30.640 --> 00:47:35.200\nAnd so they come neither bank wanted just gone from being a terrible company to\n\n1076\n00:47:35.200 --> 00:47:36.240\na mediocre company.\n\n1077\n00:47:36.240 --> 00:47:40.400\nYou know, Chase, Jay Beward Chase was part of it. There are a lot of deals to\n\n1078\n00:47:40.400 --> 00:47:40.880\ntake in place,\n\n1079\n00:47:40.880 --> 00:47:44.320\nbut it never completely performed. So in reality, we were putting, but the\n\n1080\n00:47:44.320 --> 00:47:45.360\nindustrial logic was\n\n1081\n00:47:45.360 --> 00:47:50.500\nperfect to not great credit card companies and credit card North Carolina scale\n\n1082\n00:47:50.500 --> 00:47:51.440\nput together.\n\n1083\n00:47:51.440 --> 00:47:55.220\nWe had a great retail system. They didn't, but they had great branches in New\n\n1084\n00:47:55.220 --> 00:47:56.080\nYork. You know,\n\n1085\n00:47:56.080 --> 00:47:59.680\nwe both had middle market businesses. They had an investment bank. We didn't,\n\n1086\n00:47:59.680 --> 00:48:00.640\nbut we could bring\n\n1087\n00:48:00.640 --> 00:48:03.610\nthose products and services to the clients around the United States. They were\n\n1088\n00:48:03.610 --> 00:48:04.800\nglobal. We were not,\n\n1089\n00:48:04.800 --> 00:48:07.910\nwe just started working it. Like literally just been, and I remember starting\n\n1090\n00:48:07.910 --> 00:48:08.640\nthese, like you've\n\n1091\n00:48:08.640 --> 00:48:14.670\nhad the business reviews by business payment, systems, by country, by\n\n1092\n00:48:14.670 --> 00:48:15.680\ninvestment banking,\n\n1093\n00:48:15.680 --> 00:48:19.920\nmiddle market banking, consumer banking, credit card. And never said we were\n\n1094\n00:48:19.920 --> 00:48:20.720\ntransformed. It just\n\n1095\n00:48:20.720 --> 00:48:25.070\nwent to work at making it a better company, being honest assessment, setting\n\n1096\n00:48:25.070 --> 00:48:26.000\nreal targets for\n\n1097\n00:48:26.000 --> 00:48:29.890\nourselves about what we should be performing, removing the management. There's\n\n1098\n00:48:29.890 --> 00:48:30.320\npolitical and\n\n1099\n00:48:30.320 --> 00:48:35.040\nbureaucratic, but Bill and I spoke all the time. Like I, I was running most\n\n1100\n00:48:35.040 --> 00:48:36.480\nthat stuff, but he was\n\n1101\n00:48:36.480 --> 00:48:41.110\ncompletely supportive. In fact, there was one time that a, at a meeting of\n\n1102\n00:48:41.110 --> 00:48:41.760\nsomeone said,\n\n1103\n00:48:41.760 --> 00:48:45.800\nyou know, Jamie was very rude at his meeting we had, but I criticized them for\n\n1104\n00:48:45.800 --> 00:48:46.320\nthese insurance\n\n1105\n00:48:46.320 --> 00:48:49.280\ndeals. They thought they were doing to protect the company from auto warranties\n\n1106\n00:48:49.280 --> 00:48:49.280\n.\n\n1107\n00:48:49.280 --> 00:48:56.930\nAnd he went on and on and Jamie did this and Bill said, excuse me, that did not\n\n1108\n00:48:56.930 --> 00:48:58.240\nhappen. He said,\n\n1109\n00:48:58.240 --> 00:49:03.240\nwell, you weren't there. He said, I was. I was in the back of the room. And he\n\n1110\n00:49:03.240 --> 00:49:04.080\nwas asking you a lot\n\n1111\n00:49:04.080 --> 00:49:08.090\nof very good and smart and tough questions. And you know, Bill was a little\n\n1112\n00:49:08.090 --> 00:49:08.720\nsurprised\n\n1113\n00:49:08.720 --> 00:49:12.440\nthe, how deep I went to all these businesses. At one point, he said to me, are\n\n1114\n00:49:12.440 --> 00:49:12.720\nyou going to do\n\n1115\n00:49:12.720 --> 00:49:16.710\nthis all the time? I said, yeah, I said pretty much like leave, you know, very\n\n1116\n00:49:16.710 --> 00:49:17.520\noften, he didn't\n\n1117\n00:49:17.520 --> 00:49:20.240\nalways agree with this up. I was doing BCA. It's your company. You know, you're\n\n1118\n00:49:20.240 --> 00:49:20.800\ngoing to be CEO in\n\n1119\n00:49:20.800 --> 00:49:24.880\na couple of months, whatever. But then it came to one guy that I wanted to ask\n\n1120\n00:49:24.880 --> 00:49:25.280\nleave,\n\n1121\n00:49:25.280 --> 00:49:32.480\nwho I thought was a great politician, but a complete self-server, you know,\n\n1122\n00:49:32.480 --> 00:49:33.360\ntook care of his,\n\n1123\n00:49:33.360 --> 00:49:37.040\nyou know, the buddies of this and was kind of a hatchet man for Bill himself.\n\n1124\n00:49:37.040 --> 00:49:38.640\nAnd I went to see Bill,\n\n1125\n00:49:38.640 --> 00:49:44.550\nI said, he's got to go. And Bill said, well, I totally disagree with you. He's\n\n1126\n00:49:44.550 --> 00:49:45.680\nbeen key here,\n\n1127\n00:49:45.680 --> 00:49:51.380\nand I went home that night and I came back in the next day. And I said, Bill, I\n\n1128\n00:49:51.380 --> 00:49:52.480\nam, we've done\n\n1129\n00:49:52.480 --> 00:49:56.360\neverything together here. I'm really uncomfortably complete discreet. I would\n\n1130\n00:49:56.360 --> 00:49:57.680\nfeel much more comfortable\n\n1131\n00:49:57.680 --> 00:50:02.120\nif you go ask some of the other senior management people about what I said. Is\n\n1132\n00:50:02.120 --> 00:50:03.280\nhe trusted? Is this\n\n1133\n00:50:03.280 --> 00:50:06.580\nis that and Bill, this credit went out and spoke to four or five people and\n\n1134\n00:50:06.580 --> 00:50:07.120\ncame back and said,\n\n1135\n00:50:07.120 --> 00:50:12.100\nyou were right. And I should have known. And so we were kind of locked up every\n\n1136\n00:50:12.100 --> 00:50:12.880\nstep of the way.\n\n1137\n00:50:12.880 --> 00:50:19.760\nEven since he left, which is now, you know, almost 20 years ago, you know, he's\n\n1138\n00:50:19.760 --> 00:50:20.480\nbeen anything you\n\n1139\n00:50:20.480 --> 00:50:25.730\ncan do to help. And even guys like the guy who ran Dennis Weatherstone, I don't\n\n1140\n00:50:25.730 --> 00:50:26.720\nknow if you him,\n\n1141\n00:50:26.720 --> 00:50:31.950\nyou've been a former CEO of JP Morgan itself, you know, call me up and add a\n\n1142\n00:50:31.950 --> 00:50:33.360\nboy every quarter.\n\n1143\n00:50:33.360 --> 00:50:38.820\nYou know, I mean, there's some very sweet guys at the John B. McCoy. Yeah. You\n\n1144\n00:50:38.820 --> 00:50:39.680\nknow, the older guys\n\n1145\n00:50:39.680 --> 00:50:43.770\nstarted bank one and started with one branch to whatever 1000. He would come\n\n1146\n00:50:43.770 --> 00:50:44.560\nsee me every now\n\n1147\n00:50:44.560 --> 00:50:49.150\nand then just to say, you're doing a great job, kid. That's great. You know,\n\n1148\n00:50:49.150 --> 00:50:49.680\none of the things\n\n1149\n00:50:49.680 --> 00:50:52.580\nthat, you know, being on the board and watching you in action, you know, you\n\n1150\n00:50:52.580 --> 00:50:53.440\nestablished gold\n\n1151\n00:50:53.440 --> 00:50:57.950\nstandards, not within the financial industry, but also other other other\n\n1152\n00:50:57.950 --> 00:50:59.280\ncategories that might be\n\n1153\n00:50:59.280 --> 00:51:03.230\nbetter at processing or you pick whatever measure that you're you're going\n\n1154\n00:51:03.230 --> 00:51:04.080\nafter. And you really\n\n1155\n00:51:04.080 --> 00:51:09.010\ndrove those gold standards home. And you talk about working it. You know, if\n\n1156\n00:51:09.010 --> 00:51:09.680\nsomebody asks you\n\n1157\n00:51:09.680 --> 00:51:13.130\nabout strategy in those days, it's I don't really care about that strategy. You\n\n1158\n00:51:13.130 --> 00:51:14.000\nknow, I'm not, you\n\n1159\n00:51:14.000 --> 00:51:19.600\nknow, our strategy is always changing. The strategy changes basis what we see.\n\n1160\n00:51:19.600 --> 00:51:20.400\nBut you've never been\n\n1161\n00:51:20.400 --> 00:51:24.640\none or maybe you've changed. You know, you were never one back then to be\n\n1162\n00:51:24.640 --> 00:51:25.520\ntalking about your\n\n1163\n00:51:25.520 --> 00:51:29.280\nfive year plan or your tenure. You know, you didn't spend a lot of time on that\n\n1164\n00:51:29.280 --> 00:51:30.320\n. You spent a lot of\n\n1165\n00:51:30.320 --> 00:51:34.430\ntime working the business up against gold standards is how do you how do you\n\n1166\n00:51:34.430 --> 00:51:35.920\nthink about strategy?\n\n1167\n00:51:35.920 --> 00:51:39.990\nYeah. So the first thing I always do, the first thing we're not and you've seen\n\n1168\n00:51:39.990 --> 00:51:40.640\nthis before in\n\n1169\n00:51:40.640 --> 00:51:44.240\nsome of these big companies, they're always talking about I call it a strategic\n\n1170\n00:51:44.240 --> 00:51:45.360\nrate. So instead of\n\n1171\n00:51:45.360 --> 00:51:49.070\nlike, are you doing a good job or in your business? You know, remember Bob, if\n\n1172\n00:51:49.070 --> 00:51:50.240\nyou say about strategy,\n\n1173\n00:51:50.240 --> 00:51:55.050\nit works just do more like don't know. And they had outside consultants. I got\n\n1174\n00:51:55.050 --> 00:51:55.760\nrid of all that\n\n1175\n00:51:55.760 --> 00:51:59.880\nkind of stuff. And so my first goal is just run the place well, consolidate the\n\n1176\n00:51:59.880 --> 00:52:00.560\nsystems,\n\n1177\n00:52:00.560 --> 00:52:06.060\nbranch by branch, then you develop plans. They were strategies. These things\n\n1178\n00:52:06.060 --> 00:52:07.040\nwork, do more of these\n\n1179\n00:52:07.040 --> 00:52:11.010\nbranches, close these things down, take all the products and services, JP\n\n1180\n00:52:11.010 --> 00:52:12.720\nMorgan, you know, like\n\n1181\n00:52:12.720 --> 00:52:16.220\ninto the middle market, like the middle market is 35% of our US domestic\n\n1182\n00:52:16.220 --> 00:52:17.360\ninvestment banking now.\n\n1183\n00:52:17.920 --> 00:52:21.600\nAnd that was a strategy. You already have the engine and just get more products\n\n1184\n00:52:21.600 --> 00:52:22.160\nacross this,\n\n1185\n00:52:22.160 --> 00:52:29.130\nyou know, this very costly enterprise. It got rid of I got rid of lots of the\n\n1186\n00:52:29.130 --> 00:52:30.640\ncompany that didn't fit.\n\n1187\n00:52:30.640 --> 00:52:35.120\nAnd you may be so I sold this, closed it down, but every part of the company\n\n1188\n00:52:35.120 --> 00:52:35.920\nfits and they feed\n\n1189\n00:52:35.920 --> 00:52:39.530\neach other. You know, private bank and middle market use the consumer branches.\n\n1190\n00:52:39.530 --> 00:52:40.480\nThe investment bank\n\n1191\n00:52:42.080 --> 00:52:48.480\nis hugely benefited by the private bank and by middle market banking. You know,\n\n1192\n00:52:48.480 --> 00:52:49.280\npayment systems\n\n1193\n00:52:49.280 --> 00:52:52.470\nare hugely benefited by being in the consumer business and the wholesale\n\n1194\n00:52:52.470 --> 00:52:53.680\nbusiness. And so\n\n1195\n00:52:53.680 --> 00:52:57.280\nthere are these large strategies, but you know, I didn't let people spend that\n\n1196\n00:52:57.280 --> 00:52:58.080\nmuch time BSing\n\n1197\n00:52:58.080 --> 00:53:02.110\nabout it. Like we set the strategy and now we have a plan. So, you know, even\n\n1198\n00:53:02.110 --> 00:53:02.480\nlike,\n\n1199\n00:53:02.480 --> 00:53:05.750\nyou know, we started building the chase, well, this and they have to do this.\n\n1200\n00:53:05.750 --> 00:53:06.240\nWe have a lot of\n\n1201\n00:53:06.240 --> 00:53:09.420\nskunk works going on. We always have that. So like one was probably started\n\n1202\n00:53:09.420 --> 00:53:10.800\nwhen you were there was,\n\n1203\n00:53:10.800 --> 00:53:13.600\nyou know, we had these branches and the wealthiest parts of the world, but we\n\n1204\n00:53:13.600 --> 00:53:14.720\ndidn't do very much\n\n1205\n00:53:14.720 --> 00:53:18.710\nmoney management, like wealth management. And I had wanted to do a test in\n\n1206\n00:53:18.710 --> 00:53:19.520\nwhite planes. We were\n\n1207\n00:53:19.520 --> 00:53:24.390\nthe wealthiest, you know, zip codes in the country. And we did the test and it\n\n1208\n00:53:24.390 --> 00:53:25.840\ndidn't work. And then\n\n1209\n00:53:25.840 --> 00:53:28.220\npeople here, you got to clash the valuation money. I was like, well, let's try\n\n1210\n00:53:28.220 --> 00:53:29.200\nagain, did the test,\n\n1211\n00:53:29.200 --> 00:53:32.560\ndidn't work. You know, and sometimes you have to just keep modifying it, like\n\n1212\n00:53:32.560 --> 00:53:33.520\njust keep turning\n\n1213\n00:53:33.520 --> 00:53:36.890\nthe dials a little bit. Okay, that that business now manages a trillion dollars\n\n1214\n00:53:36.890 --> 00:53:37.120\n.\n\n1215\n00:53:39.040 --> 00:53:43.120\nAnd so once we got the strategy, right, but this was by testing. So sometimes\n\n1216\n00:53:43.120 --> 00:53:43.680\nyou should kill these\n\n1217\n00:53:43.680 --> 00:53:47.630\nhobbies and sometimes you should, but there's like 10 of those, like how we\n\n1218\n00:53:47.630 --> 00:53:48.400\nbuilt, you know,\n\n1219\n00:53:48.400 --> 00:53:52.620\nwe're in all 50 states now, you know, but building branches, how we, when we\n\n1220\n00:53:52.620 --> 00:53:53.680\nbought WAMU,\n\n1221\n00:53:53.680 --> 00:53:57.070\nwhich is all consumed, we put on top of that private banking, middle market,\n\n1222\n00:53:57.070 --> 00:53:58.000\nsmall business.\n\n1223\n00:53:58.000 --> 00:54:01.300\nSo they cost the branch system was all of a sudden fee and lots of the\n\n1224\n00:54:01.300 --> 00:54:02.560\nbusinesses. So there are\n\n1225\n00:54:02.560 --> 00:54:06.920\nthese big strategies, but I think the problem with strategy, when people overdo\n\n1226\n00:54:06.920 --> 00:54:07.360\nit is a,\n\n1227\n00:54:07.920 --> 00:54:11.200\nthey spend a lot of time making excuses for why they're not running a good\n\n1228\n00:54:11.200 --> 00:54:11.920\nbusiness.\n\n1229\n00:54:11.920 --> 00:54:15.760\nIt's sort of like the way I would describe what you just described is you work,\n\n1230\n00:54:15.760 --> 00:54:19.280\nyou keep working on what's working, and then you work on what is it, and they\n\n1231\n00:54:19.280 --> 00:54:20.640\njust keep evolving\n\n1232\n00:54:20.640 --> 00:54:24.300\nthat as you go forward. Yeah, I've always very questioned. I see, you know, we\n\n1233\n00:54:24.300 --> 00:54:25.040\nhave to transform\n\n1234\n00:54:25.040 --> 00:54:28.660\nthe business because you are doing that over time, but you're doing it. You\n\n1235\n00:54:28.660 --> 00:54:29.040\nhave to do it at a\n\n1236\n00:54:29.040 --> 00:54:33.360\nvery detailed level and a strategic level. And, but you know, a lot of\n\n1237\n00:54:33.360 --> 00:54:35.280\nbusinesses, you've seen this,\n\n1238\n00:54:35.280 --> 00:54:40.290\nyou know, if you have a second rate execution, you're in trouble. You know, if\n\n1239\n00:54:40.290 --> 00:54:40.960\nyou have a first rate\n\n1240\n00:54:40.960 --> 00:54:43.940\nexecution, you can run a pretty good business. Whether or not you have a\n\n1241\n00:54:43.940 --> 00:54:44.880\nperfect strategy.\n\n1242\n00:54:44.880 --> 00:54:48.140\nWe'll be back with the rest of my conversations with Jamie Diamond in just a\n\n1243\n00:54:48.140 --> 00:54:48.720\nmoment.\n\n1244\n00:54:48.720 --> 00:54:52.490\nYou know, talking about his college days, Jamie mentioned Steve Burke, who was\n\n1245\n00:54:52.490 --> 00:54:53.120\nthe chairman\n\n1246\n00:54:53.120 --> 00:54:59.120\nCEO of NBC Universal. In Steve's episode of How Leaders Lead, he talks about\n\n1247\n00:54:59.120 --> 00:55:00.240\nthe same ideals of\n\n1248\n00:55:00.240 --> 00:55:05.100\nhumility and curiosity that Jamie does, including this concept I love about\n\n1249\n00:55:05.100 --> 00:55:06.640\nseeing your team as a\n\n1250\n00:55:06.640 --> 00:55:11.340\nsymphony. What we have tried to do is make sure that our executives don't have\n\n1251\n00:55:11.340 --> 00:55:12.000\nbig egos and\n\n1252\n00:55:12.000 --> 00:55:15.440\nthat our executives don't run around saying it's all about me or I'm\n\n1253\n00:55:15.440 --> 00:55:18.000\nindispensable or, you know,\n\n1254\n00:55:18.000 --> 00:55:23.170\nI did this and did that. And what we have a philosophy that we call symphony,\n\n1255\n00:55:23.170 --> 00:55:23.600\nwhich is,\n\n1256\n00:55:23.600 --> 00:55:28.360\nI don't like the word synergy. I think synergies become almost a, you know, an\n\n1257\n00:55:28.360 --> 00:55:30.080\nMBA, you know, catch\n\n1258\n00:55:30.080 --> 00:55:35.200\nphrase. We call our effort of working together symphony. And one of the\n\n1259\n00:55:35.200 --> 00:55:36.240\nadvantages our company\n\n1260\n00:55:36.240 --> 00:55:40.000\nhas for someone with a good idea is if you bring a movie to us and we think it\n\n1261\n00:55:40.000 --> 00:55:40.960\n's a great movie,\n\n1262\n00:55:40.960 --> 00:55:45.900\nwe will make sure that it gets supported on USA, sci-fi, entertainment in the\n\n1263\n00:55:45.900 --> 00:55:46.560\nOlympics.\n\n1264\n00:55:46.560 --> 00:55:51.700\nAnd when we identify the priorities and we go to our executives, it's non-negot\n\n1265\n00:55:51.700 --> 00:55:52.880\niable. Everybody's\n\n1266\n00:55:52.880 --> 00:55:59.040\ngoing to get behind these big events. And what we found is we have 22% of all\n\n1267\n00:55:59.040 --> 00:55:59.840\ntelevision viewing\n\n1268\n00:55:59.840 --> 00:56:04.840\nin America. When we get behind promoting a new theme park ride or the Olympics\n\n1269\n00:56:04.840 --> 00:56:05.600\nor a new movie,\n\n1270\n00:56:05.600 --> 00:56:11.450\nit works. And one of the interesting side benefits of the symphony program, it\n\n1271\n00:56:11.450 --> 00:56:12.480\nwas a message,\n\n1272\n00:56:12.480 --> 00:56:16.800\na cultural message to everybody in the company that no individual business is\n\n1273\n00:56:16.800 --> 00:56:17.200\nimportant,\n\n1274\n00:56:17.200 --> 00:56:22.560\nmore important than the company as a whole. And teams do better than individual\n\n1275\n00:56:22.560 --> 00:56:23.200\nperformers.\n\n1276\n00:56:23.200 --> 00:56:29.320\nAnd I think one of the ways that you get really creative people to work with\n\n1277\n00:56:29.320 --> 00:56:30.240\nyou and for you and\n\n1278\n00:56:30.240 --> 00:56:34.440\nbring you great ideas is if they feel like what you're going to be doing is\n\n1279\n00:56:34.440 --> 00:56:35.440\ngoing to be about\n\n1280\n00:56:35.440 --> 00:56:41.220\ntheir idea, not about you. So I'm very much on the watch for people inside our\n\n1281\n00:56:41.220 --> 00:56:42.400\ncompany who get\n\n1282\n00:56:42.400 --> 00:56:47.180\ntoo carried away with themselves and forget the reason why we're here, which is\n\n1283\n00:56:47.180 --> 00:56:47.680\nbringing great\n\n1284\n00:56:47.680 --> 00:56:52.790\nideas to America and people. Go back and listen to my entire conversation with\n\n1285\n00:56:52.790 --> 00:56:54.480\nSteve, episode 18\n\n1286\n00:56:54.480 --> 00:57:00.480\nhere on How Leaders Lead. Jamie, you're famous for a lot of things, but I think\n\n1287\n00:57:00.480 --> 00:57:01.440\nmost famous for how\n\n1288\n00:57:01.440 --> 00:57:06.630\nyou navigated our country and JP Morgan Chase through the great recession of\n\n1289\n00:57:06.630 --> 00:57:07.920\n2008.\n\n1290\n00:57:09.200 --> 00:57:14.800\nWhat was your big takeaway from all that took to really get that done?\n\n1291\n00:57:14.800 --> 00:57:18.880\nWell, first you got to go before the crisis started and it goes back to my\n\n1292\n00:57:18.880 --> 00:57:19.680\nupbringing and\n\n1293\n00:57:19.680 --> 00:57:24.720\nwith my dad is I had seen Marcus go up and down. I remember him coming home and\n\n1294\n00:57:24.720 --> 00:57:25.680\npeople's incomes\n\n1295\n00:57:25.680 --> 00:57:31.150\nwent down. I remember in 1974, in the 1982 New York City was desperate. So this\n\n1296\n00:57:31.150 --> 00:57:31.920\ngreat Wall Street,\n\n1297\n00:57:31.920 --> 00:57:35.940\nit was desperate. Restaurants were closing, stores were closing, apartments\n\n1298\n00:57:35.940 --> 00:57:36.880\nwere being sold for\n\n1299\n00:57:36.880 --> 00:57:42.300\nback maintenance literally. People forget that 1982. And so I even way back\n\n1300\n00:57:42.300 --> 00:57:43.760\nthen, when I was with\n\n1301\n00:57:43.760 --> 00:57:48.160\nSandy Wile at a traveler's, a primary et cetera, I used to do presentations for\n\n1302\n00:57:48.160 --> 00:57:49.200\nall the stock\n\n1303\n00:57:49.200 --> 00:57:53.750\nbros about how we have to be able to deal with all these ups and downs. And\n\n1304\n00:57:53.750 --> 00:57:54.480\npart of the name of\n\n1305\n00:57:54.480 --> 00:57:58.560\nthe game, it just continued, served your clients do a great job in the downs,\n\n1306\n00:57:58.560 --> 00:57:59.760\nnot just in the ups.\n\n1307\n00:57:59.760 --> 00:58:04.730\nAnd I don't over celebrate the rising tide, but be prepared for the tide going\n\n1308\n00:58:04.730 --> 00:58:05.520\nout when I got to\n\n1309\n00:58:05.520 --> 00:58:10.900\nJP Morgan. I was very tough here about capital, liquidity, profitability,\n\n1310\n00:58:10.900 --> 00:58:11.680\nbecause I knew that\n\n1311\n00:58:11.680 --> 00:58:15.710\nthe shit at the fan early on, we would have had a real problem. So before that\n\n1312\n00:58:15.710 --> 00:58:16.960\nand then get real\n\n1313\n00:58:16.960 --> 00:58:20.070\nrisk management in place. So if you talk to the folks here, they were shocked\n\n1314\n00:58:20.070 --> 00:58:20.960\nat the detail I'd\n\n1315\n00:58:20.960 --> 00:58:25.680\ngo into, every position, every risk, the what ifs, how bad can it get? And I\n\n1316\n00:58:25.680 --> 00:58:26.800\nmade them do stress\n\n1317\n00:58:26.800 --> 00:58:29.900\ntests that they were like, I'll never happen. I said, I don't care what happens\n\n1318\n00:58:29.900 --> 00:58:30.400\n. And they're\n\n1319\n00:58:30.400 --> 00:58:33.420\nby it. It's like kind of what happened, by the way. I said, I want to know if\n\n1320\n00:58:33.420 --> 00:58:34.240\nit happens that we\n\n1321\n00:58:34.240 --> 00:58:38.270\nsurvive to serve our client, because you can't tell me it's not going to happen\n\n1322\n00:58:38.270 --> 00:58:39.280\n. So risk\n\n1323\n00:58:39.280 --> 00:58:42.860\nmanagement is much more being prepared for a whole range of outcomes and what\n\n1324\n00:58:42.860 --> 00:58:43.120\nifs,\n\n1325\n00:58:43.120 --> 00:58:46.880\nthen the shit at the fan. But we were ready by that. We had more liquidity,\n\n1326\n00:58:46.880 --> 00:58:47.520\nmore capital,\n\n1327\n00:58:47.520 --> 00:58:52.700\nmore profitability. And you may remember the risk committee, the board at one\n\n1328\n00:58:52.700 --> 00:58:53.040\npoint,\n\n1329\n00:58:53.040 --> 00:58:58.800\nI left you guys at the board. I said, I had to go to the risk committee. And we\n\n1330\n00:58:58.800 --> 00:58:59.680\nwere going through\n\n1331\n00:58:59.680 --> 00:59:03.670\nliterally client by client and country by country and loan by loan and helping\n\n1332\n00:59:03.670 --> 00:59:04.320\npeople.\n\n1333\n00:59:04.320 --> 00:59:07.200\nWe went and watched that. You actually had us come watching.\n\n1334\n00:59:07.200 --> 00:59:10.800\nYou watched the sources get made, but people say, what did you do different,\n\n1335\n00:59:10.800 --> 00:59:11.760\nnothing other than,\n\n1336\n00:59:11.760 --> 00:59:16.880\nwe already had teams. We already had an army. We already had things to go. So\n\n1337\n00:59:16.880 --> 00:59:17.520\nthe risk committee\n\n1338\n00:59:17.520 --> 00:59:21.690\nused to meet once a week for a couple hours. And all of a sudden it was meeting\n\n1339\n00:59:21.690 --> 00:59:22.480\n, and it was\n\n1340\n00:59:22.480 --> 00:59:25.930\nkind of more formalized, reviewing certain things. And all of a sudden it was\n\n1341\n00:59:25.930 --> 00:59:27.120\nmeeting five times a day,\n\n1342\n00:59:27.680 --> 00:59:34.420\nevery day for a year. And I mean every day. And I mean going to 10 p.m. and 5 a\n\n1343\n00:59:34.420 --> 00:59:34.960\n.m. because you had\n\n1344\n00:59:34.960 --> 00:59:38.830\nAsia. We had to be up for that. And we were on calls all the time with\n\n1345\n00:59:38.830 --> 00:59:40.400\nregulators and governments\n\n1346\n00:59:40.400 --> 00:59:44.740\nand clients. But the machine was working. And then the formality, when you were\n\n1347\n00:59:44.740 --> 00:59:45.440\nthere, the\n\n1348\n00:59:45.440 --> 00:59:49.020\nformality went away. It's like, hey, David, don't come up and make us a\n\n1349\n00:59:49.020 --> 00:59:50.400\npresentation about the\n\n1350\n00:59:50.400 --> 00:59:54.520\nmortgage problem in Denmark. Bring up whoever you need to describe and tell us\n\n1351\n00:59:54.520 --> 00:59:55.600\nwhat they want to do.\n\n1352\n00:59:56.880 --> 01:00:01.600\nAnd so we were making battlefield decisions to help, mostly to help clients\n\n1353\n01:00:01.600 --> 01:00:01.760\nbecause\n\n1354\n01:00:01.760 --> 01:00:07.150\nJP Morgan was actually in quite good shape. And then you just learn how people\n\n1355\n01:00:07.150 --> 01:00:07.600\noperate on the\n\n1356\n01:00:07.600 --> 01:00:12.800\nstress and strain. I mean, some people are great and some are just children.\n\n1357\n01:00:12.800 --> 01:00:21.520\nAnd so you literally help take the country out of this crisis. What was the\n\n1358\n01:00:21.520 --> 01:00:23.040\nsingle biggest,\n\n1359\n01:00:23.040 --> 01:00:28.880\ndarkest moment that you had during that period? And how did you, you said, some\n\n1360\n01:00:28.880 --> 01:00:29.840\npeople don't really\n\n1361\n01:00:29.840 --> 01:00:35.930\nknow how to handle crisis. How did you personally handle it? First there was\n\n1362\n01:00:35.930 --> 01:00:38.080\nbear's terms.\n\n1363\n01:00:38.080 --> 01:00:42.880\nSo the world was rocky. Subprime was going down. Some hedge funds had problems.\n\n1364\n01:00:42.880 --> 01:00:43.440\nQuad funds were\n\n1365\n01:00:43.440 --> 01:00:47.340\nhaving problems. Markets were down. Bear's terms stock had fallen from, I think\n\n1366\n01:00:47.340 --> 01:00:48.240\nit had a market cap\n\n1367\n01:00:48.240 --> 01:00:52.320\n20 billion to 15 billion to 10 billion, which is a real sign of a prominent\n\n1368\n01:00:52.320 --> 01:00:53.360\nfinancial company.\n\n1369\n01:00:53.360 --> 01:00:58.280\nAnd then I got the phone call on March 13th, Thursday, 2008. I was actually\n\n1370\n01:00:58.280 --> 01:00:58.720\nhaving dinner\n\n1371\n01:00:58.720 --> 01:01:03.210\nmy parents at a Greek restaurant down the street here. And it was maybe nine o'\n\n1372\n01:01:03.210 --> 01:01:04.160\nclock at night. I\n\n1373\n01:01:04.160 --> 01:01:07.140\nhad to leave the restaurant because I couldn't hear. And Alan Schwartz, the CEO\n\n1374\n01:01:07.140 --> 01:01:07.840\nof Bear Stuent said,\n\n1375\n01:01:07.840 --> 01:01:11.700\nJamie, I need 30 billion dollars tonight. Otherwise, we're gonna go bankrupt in\n\n1376\n01:01:11.700 --> 01:01:12.480\nAsia in the morning.\n\n1377\n01:01:13.040 --> 01:01:17.770\nAnd even I said, Alan, I don't even know how to get 30 billion dollars. But let\n\n1378\n01:01:17.770 --> 01:01:18.800\n's have you\n\n1379\n01:01:18.800 --> 01:01:23.830\nspoke to the secretary of treasury and he had, I called up literally our senior\n\n1380\n01:01:23.830 --> 01:01:25.920\npeople. I said,\n\n1381\n01:01:25.920 --> 01:01:31.270\nget dressed and go to the office. And we had hundreds of people come in that\n\n1382\n01:01:31.270 --> 01:01:31.760\nnight,\n\n1383\n01:01:31.760 --> 01:01:35.440\nstart going through the books of bear's terms. And we told Hank Paulson,\n\n1384\n01:01:35.440 --> 01:01:39.840\nlook, let's just get them to the weekend. That gives us 48 hours to figure out\n\n1385\n01:01:39.840 --> 01:01:40.400\nif we could save\n\n1386\n01:01:40.400 --> 01:01:43.700\nbear's terms. And so we had this lifeline, which I won't go through with the\n\n1387\n01:01:43.700 --> 01:01:44.400\nFederal Reserve\n\n1388\n01:01:44.400 --> 01:01:47.360\nabout how we're going to do that. That was our idea, by the way.\n\n1389\n01:01:47.360 --> 01:01:52.220\nAnd now I had a thousand people, 2000 coming in, doing what you call due\n\n1390\n01:01:52.220 --> 01:01:52.960\ndiligence,\n\n1391\n01:01:52.960 --> 01:01:57.690\nevery loan, every asset, every real estate, HR policies, litigation, can we\n\n1392\n01:01:57.690 --> 01:01:58.400\nhandle it?\n\n1393\n01:01:58.400 --> 01:02:01.270\nYou know, what are the integration, which is going to cost, how much would it\n\n1394\n01:02:01.270 --> 01:02:01.760\nwrite down?\n\n1395\n01:02:01.760 --> 01:02:09.110\nAnd we did probably six months of work in two days. And the boy bear's terms\n\n1396\n01:02:09.110 --> 01:02:09.840\nthat night\n\n1397\n01:02:09.840 --> 01:02:14.200\nsigned the thing that night, that is that kind of things the moment where you\n\n1398\n01:02:14.200 --> 01:02:14.720\n're breathless.\n\n1399\n01:02:14.720 --> 01:02:18.160\nIt was the same way I felt when I signed the document, it's like one signature,\n\n1400\n01:02:18.160 --> 01:02:23.360\nmerged bank one and JP Morgan. So I sit in my office late at night,\n\n1401\n01:02:23.360 --> 01:02:27.200\nand I'm signed that piece of paper. I know I'm taking an extraordinary amount\n\n1402\n01:02:27.200 --> 01:02:27.520\nof risk,\n\n1403\n01:02:27.520 --> 01:02:32.000\nwhich we think we can handle. And I'm also subjecting my people to a tremendous\n\n1404\n01:02:32.000 --> 01:02:32.880\namount of work,\n\n1405\n01:02:32.880 --> 01:02:35.950\nbecause people forget it's not the deal. You know, the press writes about the\n\n1406\n01:02:35.950 --> 01:02:36.320\ndeal, the deal,\n\n1407\n01:02:36.320 --> 01:02:41.440\nthe deal is the next day 30 or 40,000 people are working on stuff that is brand\n\n1408\n01:02:41.440 --> 01:02:42.400\nnew to them.\n\n1409\n01:02:42.400 --> 01:02:47.120\nPeople are going to lose their jobs, they're worried, they're nervous,\n\n1410\n01:02:47.120 --> 01:02:51.090\nit's, you know, you're literally working seven days a week. And then, but the\n\n1411\n01:02:51.090 --> 01:02:51.840\nworst moment was,\n\n1412\n01:02:51.840 --> 01:02:56.190\nso bear's terms was bought. And we thought that might be saving the system, but\n\n1413\n01:02:56.190 --> 01:02:56.880\nsix months later,\n\n1414\n01:02:56.880 --> 01:03:01.490\nLehman didn't make it. Lehman didn't get bought. Lehman disintegrated. And that\n\n1415\n01:03:01.490 --> 01:03:02.880\ncaused disruption\n\n1416\n01:03:02.880 --> 01:03:07.490\naround the world of payments and systems and money and things shouldn't happen\n\n1417\n01:03:07.490 --> 01:03:07.760\nthat way,\n\n1418\n01:03:07.760 --> 01:03:12.530\nas they did fix by the way. But even after that, AIG, the largest insurance\n\n1419\n01:03:12.530 --> 01:03:13.120\ncompany,\n\n1420\n01:03:13.120 --> 01:03:20.340\nCity, you know, Bank America is one after another. But the Fed finally, and we\n\n1421\n01:03:20.340 --> 01:03:21.040\ndid a lot of stuff,\n\n1422\n01:03:21.040 --> 01:03:24.150\nbut there was really the Fed at one point putting all these programs in place\n\n1423\n01:03:24.150 --> 01:03:25.600\nthat by March of\n\n1424\n01:03:25.600 --> 01:03:28.690\nthe '09, the markets were hitting all time bottoms. But I knew it was getting\n\n1425\n01:03:28.690 --> 01:03:29.680\nnear the end because\n\n1426\n01:03:30.320 --> 01:03:34.960\nthe problems were going to work. And it was going to release stress in the\n\n1427\n01:03:34.960 --> 01:03:35.840\nsystem,\n\n1428\n01:03:35.840 --> 01:03:39.370\nmarkets stopped going down, people were going to take a deep breath, clean up\n\n1429\n01:03:39.370 --> 01:03:40.480\nthe crap from the\n\n1430\n01:03:40.480 --> 01:03:46.110\npast, but, you know, go on. But that was a lot of stress. And I do, I think I\n\n1431\n01:03:46.110 --> 01:03:47.200\njust do it the same\n\n1432\n01:03:47.200 --> 01:03:51.020\nway, which I try to, you know, I, this is where I find with stress, okay? The\n\n1433\n01:03:51.020 --> 01:03:51.920\nonly thing that really\n\n1434\n01:03:51.920 --> 01:03:56.740\nsatisfies me when I have stress from work is to work. Like going to work, I\n\n1435\n01:03:56.740 --> 01:03:58.560\nmean, I could get depressed\n\n1436\n01:03:58.560 --> 01:04:02.720\nand really stress down to Saturday. But like come to the office in the Saturday\n\n1437\n01:04:02.720 --> 01:04:03.120\nof Sunday,\n\n1438\n01:04:03.120 --> 01:04:06.390\nI start working on the problems. It immediately goes away from it because I'm\n\n1439\n01:04:06.390 --> 01:04:07.040\ndoing something,\n\n1440\n01:04:07.040 --> 01:04:11.380\nstuff like that. And so, but then, but away from that, it's just to get your\n\n1441\n01:04:11.380 --> 01:04:11.920\nsleep,\n\n1442\n01:04:11.920 --> 01:04:17.040\nget your exercise, you know, do something that takes your mind over for a while\n\n1443\n01:04:17.040 --> 01:04:18.240\nwith some, you know,\n\n1444\n01:04:18.240 --> 01:04:21.920\nstupid TV show or something like that. When you have little successes, even the\n\n1445\n01:04:21.920 --> 01:04:23.040\nmiddle of a crisis,\n\n1446\n01:04:23.040 --> 01:04:26.910\nget the people together for a cocktail party to thank them. Yeah, like, a\n\n1447\n01:04:26.910 --> 01:04:27.520\nlittle things like\n\n1448\n01:04:27.520 --> 01:04:31.530\nthat that just relieve it. And you've had so many successes. If you build, you\n\n1449\n01:04:31.530 --> 01:04:31.680\nknow,\n\n1450\n01:04:31.680 --> 01:04:35.950\nJP Morgan Chase into the, by far and away, the number one financial institution\n\n1451\n01:04:35.950 --> 01:04:36.880\nin the world.\n\n1452\n01:04:36.880 --> 01:04:43.120\nAnd one of the best companies in the world, you know, looking back, what would\n\n1453\n01:04:43.120 --> 01:04:43.760\nyou say has been\n\n1454\n01:04:43.760 --> 01:04:49.520\nyour biggest disappointment at JP Morgan Chase? And what did you learn from it?\n\n1455\n01:04:49.520 --> 01:04:52.830\nYou know, people would probably point out the well, you know, we lost billions\n\n1456\n01:04:52.830 --> 01:04:53.280\nof dollars,\n\n1457\n01:04:53.280 --> 01:04:57.320\nthis terrible, in-a-adict training thing. And I was, of course, heavily\n\n1458\n01:04:57.320 --> 01:04:58.800\ncriticized legitimately.\n\n1459\n01:04:58.800 --> 01:05:03.600\nAnd, you know, and of course, at one point, someone asked me on an analyst call\n\n1460\n01:05:03.600 --> 01:05:04.560\n, is it just a\n\n1461\n01:05:04.560 --> 01:05:08.630\ntempest in a teapot? I said, yes. But at that moment, I didn't know how bad it\n\n1462\n01:05:08.630 --> 01:05:09.600\nwas. I had been\n\n1463\n01:05:09.600 --> 01:05:13.610\ntold something which was not accurate. And I remember coming back late one\n\n1464\n01:05:13.610 --> 01:05:14.560\nnight, I said,\n\n1465\n01:05:14.560 --> 01:05:18.640\nI want to see the actual positions, the actual what-ifs, the actual stuff,\n\n1466\n01:05:18.640 --> 01:05:20.000\nreading the stuff,\n\n1467\n01:05:20.800 --> 01:05:25.120\nand my heart stopped. But I realized, what were you done? And I immediately got\n\n1468\n01:05:25.120 --> 01:05:25.920\non a call with\n\n1469\n01:05:25.920 --> 01:05:32.160\nanalysts and said, we've lost $2 billion. We're going to lose more. We made a,\n\n1470\n01:05:32.160 --> 01:05:33.280\nit was badly managed,\n\n1471\n01:05:33.280 --> 01:05:37.840\na bad strategy, badly reported, badly done. It's my fault. And I'm sorry. It's\n\n1472\n01:05:37.840 --> 01:05:38.160\nsomething that\n\n1473\n01:05:38.160 --> 01:05:41.840\nhad gotten away wasn't properly reported. I won't go into. But I do remember,\n\n1474\n01:05:41.840 --> 01:05:42.320\nbut again,\n\n1475\n01:05:42.320 --> 01:05:46.510\nI don't consider that my worst moment, just terrible. And I told, I actually\n\n1476\n01:05:46.510 --> 01:05:47.280\ngot all the PR\n\n1477\n01:05:47.280 --> 01:05:49.920\npeople and communications people together, the manager said, you know what?\n\n1478\n01:05:49.920 --> 01:05:50.320\nThey're going to\n\n1479\n01:05:50.320 --> 01:05:54.800\ncrucify me. They're going to crucify our company. I said, forget that. We're\n\n1480\n01:05:54.800 --> 01:05:56.000\ngoing to lose some money.\n\n1481\n01:05:56.000 --> 01:05:59.770\nWe've got clients around the world. When we wake up tomorrow, we're going to\n\n1482\n01:05:59.770 --> 01:06:00.080\nserve our\n\n1483\n01:06:00.080 --> 01:06:04.430\nclients around the world. And I remember driving in the next day, I was very\n\n1484\n01:06:04.430 --> 01:06:05.360\nearly like 6.30,\n\n1485\n01:06:05.360 --> 01:06:08.470\nwhen they called me, I said, Jamie, all the TV cameras out and all the\n\n1486\n01:06:08.470 --> 01:06:09.600\nnewspapers and\n\n1487\n01:06:09.600 --> 01:06:13.920\ngo into the basement. So you can avoid them. I was okay. And the closer I'm\n\n1488\n01:06:13.920 --> 01:06:14.320\ngetting to the\n\n1489\n01:06:14.320 --> 01:06:18.890\nbuilding, I'm saying, wait a second. Why? I'm not going to do that. So I got\n\n1490\n01:06:18.890 --> 01:06:19.440\nout of the car.\n\n1491\n01:06:19.440 --> 01:06:22.130\nI come running up to me and they say, what are you going to do? We're going to\n\n1492\n01:06:22.130 --> 01:06:22.720\nlose your job.\n\n1493\n01:06:22.720 --> 01:06:26.240\nI said, you know, we're going to fix this problem. I said, I looked up the\n\n1494\n01:06:26.240 --> 01:06:26.720\nbuilding. I said,\n\n1495\n01:06:26.720 --> 01:06:32.160\nI want you to know how proud I am of the 7,000 people in this building serving\n\n1496\n01:06:32.160 --> 01:06:32.800\ntheir clients\n\n1497\n01:06:32.800 --> 01:06:37.350\naround the world every day and the great job they do. And that's how I felt. It\n\n1498\n01:06:37.350 --> 01:06:37.760\nwasn't,\n\n1499\n01:06:37.760 --> 01:06:42.390\nthat was like a stupid problem. It wasn't. But I've learned so many lessons,\n\n1500\n01:06:42.390 --> 01:06:43.120\nyou know, like,\n\n1501\n01:06:43.120 --> 01:06:47.120\nand you look, you've been part of it, you know, how to run meetings and how to\n\n1502\n01:06:47.120 --> 01:06:51.200\nnotice politicians. But the biggest mistakes are always the same. People.\n\n1503\n01:06:51.200 --> 01:06:57.770\nWhen you put the wrong people in the job, you know, that means that you've, it\n\n1504\n01:06:57.770 --> 01:06:58.480\ntakes a while to\n\n1505\n01:06:58.480 --> 01:07:02.280\nfigure it out. You know, bullshit was a pretty good act. They've been bullsh\n\n1506\n01:07:02.280 --> 01:07:04.240\nitting for 25 years.\n\n1507\n01:07:04.240 --> 01:07:08.380\nThe people who reports them are going to be hurt. The company won't do a good\n\n1508\n01:07:08.380 --> 01:07:08.880\njob.\n\n1509\n01:07:08.880 --> 01:07:12.880\nIt takes you a while to figure out to replace them. And that's, and you get\n\n1510\n01:07:12.880 --> 01:07:14.000\nbetter at that.\n\n1511\n01:07:14.000 --> 01:07:17.120\nYou just get better at that over time. You see the pattern recognition. Are\n\n1512\n01:07:17.120 --> 01:07:18.000\nthey respected?\n\n1513\n01:07:18.000 --> 01:07:22.480\nAre they treated? Are they honest? As opposed to the best chess pounder and\n\n1514\n01:07:22.480 --> 01:07:27.120\nthe best salesman and they work their ass off and things are maybe important,\n\n1515\n01:07:27.120 --> 01:07:28.720\nbut that doesn't mean they're a good leader.\n\n1516\n01:07:28.720 --> 01:07:33.840\nSo the whale was what everybody would go to. Would you look at it? What was\n\n1517\n01:07:33.840 --> 01:07:34.400\nyour biggest\n\n1518\n01:07:34.400 --> 01:07:37.240\ndisappointment then? You know, the whale was an event. You knew where you could\n\n1519\n01:07:37.240 --> 01:07:37.760\nget over it.\n\n1520\n01:07:37.760 --> 01:07:39.600\nDid you have one bigger than that or was this?\n\n1521\n01:07:39.600 --> 01:07:42.560\nYeah, there was, I would say there's some people ones. I don't want to mention\n\n1522\n01:07:42.560 --> 01:07:43.120\ntheir names because\n\n1523\n01:07:43.120 --> 01:07:48.000\nI think it's very important you're not shittled over people that I missed.\n\n1524\n01:07:48.000 --> 01:07:51.760\nYou know, there was one at Bank One who you might remember and I missed it.\n\n1525\n01:07:51.760 --> 01:07:55.600\nAnd remember my management team coming in and it was late at night. They said,\n\n1526\n01:07:55.600 --> 01:07:58.880\nfour guys, which I think this is fine. But most people would allow this.\n\n1527\n01:07:58.880 --> 01:08:02.900\nFour of them said, I said, Jamie, sit down. I said, okay. They said, we're\n\n1528\n01:08:02.900 --> 01:08:03.440\ngoing to tell you\n\n1529\n01:08:03.440 --> 01:08:07.750\nsomething. Don't say anything. Just listen. I said, okay. And they proceeded to\n\n1530\n01:08:07.750 --> 01:08:08.160\ntell me how\n\n1531\n01:08:08.160 --> 01:08:12.370\nthis person we had hired, wearing this part of the business was a bad guy, a\n\n1532\n01:08:12.370 --> 01:08:14.160\nliar, dishonest.\n\n1533\n01:08:14.160 --> 01:08:20.800\nYou know, said things and did things and I listened and I didn't know. And I\n\n1534\n01:08:20.800 --> 01:08:20.960\ndidn't,\n\n1535\n01:08:20.960 --> 01:08:24.000\nyou know, and sometimes you can't tell people. So what I said to him is, I hear\n\n1536\n01:08:24.000 --> 01:08:24.560\nyou,\n\n1537\n01:08:24.560 --> 01:08:28.190\nwith a smoke, there's fire. Thank you for saying this to me. It's now my\n\n1538\n01:08:28.190 --> 01:08:28.800\nproblem.\n\n1539\n01:08:28.800 --> 01:08:33.680\nAnd they were right. And then there were a couple of ones that the JP Morgan\n\n1540\n01:08:33.680 --> 01:08:33.920\nchased,\n\n1541\n01:08:33.920 --> 01:08:37.620\nwhere I made the decision, I hired that person in Bank One, or I made the\n\n1542\n01:08:37.620 --> 01:08:38.880\ndecision, I missed it.\n\n1543\n01:08:38.880 --> 01:08:43.970\nBoy, I took too long. And I hate it when I make a change and people say, thank\n\n1544\n01:08:43.970 --> 01:08:44.560\nGod you did that.\n\n1545\n01:08:44.560 --> 01:08:48.890\nYou know what I say to him? Well, why didn't you let me know earlier? You may\n\n1546\n01:08:48.890 --> 01:08:49.920\nbe the boss,\n\n1547\n01:08:49.920 --> 01:08:54.320\nbut I love reading history and I love reading some military history. And you\n\n1548\n01:08:54.320 --> 01:08:55.040\nsee the same thing\n\n1549\n01:08:55.040 --> 01:09:00.400\nwhere there are bad generals. You know, Ron Daniel, who ran McKinsey,\n\n1550\n01:09:00.400 --> 01:09:03.280\nalways said, David, you said, you're going to learn and you learned this. It\n\n1551\n01:09:03.280 --> 01:09:03.920\nsounds like it's\n\n1552\n01:09:03.920 --> 01:09:07.940\nyour biggest, you know, disappointment is it said, you know, the business will\n\n1553\n01:09:07.940 --> 01:09:08.640\nalways run.\n\n1554\n01:09:08.640 --> 01:09:13.680\nYour results will vary. But the thing that will disappoint you the most are the\n\n1555\n01:09:13.680 --> 01:09:14.000\npeople\n\n1556\n01:09:14.000 --> 01:09:18.000\nthat you put your trust in. You know, so I think that's basically what you're\n\n1557\n01:09:18.000 --> 01:09:18.560\nsaying here. You know,\n\n1558\n01:09:18.560 --> 01:09:25.500\nI know many people have asked you to run for president. You know, I, I, I even\n\n1559\n01:09:25.500 --> 01:09:26.640\ntold you once,\n\n1560\n01:09:26.640 --> 01:09:30.190\nI remember we have a dinner at some Greek restaurants and I will, I will quit\n\n1561\n01:09:30.190 --> 01:09:31.200\nwhatever I'm doing right\n\n1562\n01:09:31.200 --> 01:09:35.740\nnow. I'll be your campaign manager. I'll do whatever you want. But we need you\n\n1563\n01:09:35.740 --> 01:09:36.880\nto run for president,\n\n1564\n01:09:36.880 --> 01:09:41.280\nyou know, what do you, what do you learn about yourself that kept, that's kept\n\n1565\n01:09:41.280 --> 01:09:42.240\nyou from jumping\n\n1566\n01:09:42.240 --> 01:09:46.500\ninto that briar patch? I'm not sure I learned a lot about myself, but like I do\n\n1567\n01:09:46.500 --> 01:09:47.840\nthink there are\n\n1568\n01:09:47.840 --> 01:09:52.480\nskills that people have that in business world that may translate to the\n\n1569\n01:09:52.480 --> 01:09:53.840\npolitical world.\n\n1570\n01:09:53.840 --> 01:09:57.290\nBut I think it's a mistake to automatically think that's true. So I think\n\n1571\n01:09:57.290 --> 01:09:57.920\nworking hard,\n\n1572\n01:09:57.920 --> 01:10:00.550\nbeing authentic, having these skills is true. But there are also these\n\n1573\n01:10:00.550 --> 01:10:01.520\npolitical skills and\n\n1574\n01:10:01.520 --> 01:10:08.400\nand you've seen a lot of business people run that fail immediately. And, and\n\n1575\n01:10:08.400 --> 01:10:09.120\nyou know,\n\n1576\n01:10:09.120 --> 01:10:12.100\nI may be better than them, but I still don't have, doesn't have all those\n\n1577\n01:10:12.100 --> 01:10:12.800\npolitical skills.\n\n1578\n01:10:12.800 --> 01:10:17.060\nThat's one. The second is, I think I literally think you should kind of have a\n\n1579\n01:10:17.060 --> 01:10:17.760\nwarm up before\n\n1580\n01:10:17.760 --> 01:10:21.720\nyou go for president, you know, and a warm up, you know, could be Congress or\n\n1581\n01:10:21.720 --> 01:10:22.640\nSenate or governor.\n\n1582\n01:10:22.640 --> 01:10:26.560\nYou've seen people like learn those skills before you go for the big enchilada.\n\n1583\n01:10:26.560 --> 01:10:30.080\nYou know, I know the world from this position I have. So I think that's\n\n1584\n01:10:30.080 --> 01:10:30.720\nimportant, but\n\n1585\n01:10:30.720 --> 01:10:35.440\nI would have had to have started earlier. And I also have this unbelief, unlike\n\n1586\n01:10:35.440 --> 01:10:36.000\nsome other people,\n\n1587\n01:10:36.000 --> 01:10:39.450\nI have this unbelievable job. You know, I think, you know, my country's very\n\n1588\n01:10:39.450 --> 01:10:40.240\nright, but next to my\n\n1589\n01:10:40.240 --> 01:10:45.040\nfamily is my country. And this, this company, I'm just so proud of what it does\n\n1590\n01:10:45.040 --> 01:10:46.560\nfor 80,000 Americans,\n\n1591\n01:10:46.560 --> 01:10:50.900\n6,000 company, American companies around the world are markets, cities, schools\n\n1592\n01:10:50.900 --> 01:10:51.520\n, states,\n\n1593\n01:10:51.520 --> 01:10:56.170\nhospitals, the community outreach program. I'm damn proud of it. So I think I\n\n1594\n01:10:56.170 --> 01:10:57.040\nadd a lot here.\n\n1595\n01:10:57.040 --> 01:11:00.620\nI'd be giving that up for kind of a wild goose chase. I tell people, how do I\n\n1596\n01:11:00.620 --> 01:11:01.360\nrun and one,\n\n1597\n01:11:01.360 --> 01:11:05.650\nwhen I was walking into that White House, I'd be waving goodbye to my family\n\n1598\n01:11:05.650 --> 01:11:06.560\nfor four years.\n\n1599\n01:11:06.560 --> 01:11:11.760\nThey'd be saying, see you, dad. I'm not sure. I'm sure my wife would have gone\n\n1600\n01:11:11.760 --> 01:11:12.560\nwith me there.\n\n1601\n01:11:12.560 --> 01:11:17.400\nAnd so I just, and it is subjecting your family to some very tough stuff. And,\n\n1602\n01:11:17.400 --> 01:11:17.600\nyou know,\n\n1603\n01:11:17.600 --> 01:11:20.400\nsome people are prepared for that. I was unprepared for the time. And so I\n\n1604\n01:11:20.400 --> 01:11:22.160\nwould never,\n\n1605\n01:11:22.160 --> 01:11:26.480\nI would never rule it out. I mean, I don't like making privacy. I'd be like, I\n\n1606\n01:11:26.480 --> 01:11:27.040\n'm not making any\n\n1607\n01:11:27.040 --> 01:11:30.150\npromise to anyone. If I change my mind, I change my mind. But I think it's hard\n\n1608\n01:11:30.150 --> 01:11:31.520\n. I'm 68 years old.\n\n1609\n01:11:31.520 --> 01:11:35.850\nI've had a health problem or two. So I just, when you put it together, it just\n\n1610\n01:11:35.850 --> 01:11:36.240\ndidn't seem like\n\n1611\n01:11:36.240 --> 01:11:39.400\nthe right thing for me to do. And you've traveled the world and, you know, JP W\n\n1612\n01:11:39.400 --> 01:11:40.640\nerenchez has such\n\n1613\n01:11:40.640 --> 01:11:46.720\nglobal impact as you mentioned, and as you've met global leaders and you've met\n\n1614\n01:11:46.720 --> 01:11:47.520\nthe top leaders\n\n1615\n01:11:47.520 --> 01:11:51.590\nin the world, who, if you had to pick out one person, who's impressed you the\n\n1616\n01:11:51.590 --> 01:11:52.400\nmost and why?\n\n1617\n01:11:52.400 --> 01:11:58.160\nThere are several, I mean, several are terrible. And I'm not going to give you\n\n1618\n01:11:58.160 --> 01:11:58.720\ntheir names.\n\n1619\n01:11:58.720 --> 01:12:06.000\nAnd these may surprise a little bit. Macron, very smart, very tough, says the\n\n1620\n01:12:06.000 --> 01:12:06.560\nsame things\n\n1621\n01:12:06.560 --> 01:12:10.640\npublicly privately, very complicated politics. You could say, made some rights\n\n1622\n01:12:10.640 --> 01:12:11.120\nas the wrong\n\n1623\n01:12:11.120 --> 01:12:15.010\ndecisions, has the right vision for France, you know, getting entrepreneurs,\n\n1624\n01:12:15.010 --> 01:12:16.080\nbusiness growing,\n\n1625\n01:12:16.080 --> 01:12:20.480\nstuff like that. The guy, Greece was a basket case. The guy who runs Greece,\n\n1626\n01:12:20.480 --> 01:12:25.210\nMiss. He's done an unbelievable job. And he did. And he would tell you,\n\n1627\n01:12:25.210 --> 01:12:26.000\nbasically, he was,\n\n1628\n01:12:26.000 --> 01:12:30.240\nI figured out what policies we needed. And then I did the politics, whereas\n\n1629\n01:12:30.240 --> 01:12:30.960\nmost politicians\n\n1630\n01:12:30.960 --> 01:12:33.640\ndo it their way around. It's all about politics. And they try to fit the\n\n1631\n01:12:33.640 --> 01:12:34.480\npolicies into what they\n\n1632\n01:12:34.480 --> 01:12:39.190\npromised, which, you know, policies badly done don't work. And so, and then a\n\n1633\n01:12:39.190 --> 01:12:39.840\nlot of them from\n\n1634\n01:12:39.840 --> 01:12:43.390\nhistory, you know, I mean, I've been reading a lot about Ike Eisenhower, just\n\n1635\n01:12:43.390 --> 01:12:44.320\nthe competence of the\n\n1636\n01:12:44.320 --> 01:12:48.720\nman. He surrounds all the great people that he ran that everyone spoke up.\n\n1637\n01:12:48.720 --> 01:12:49.440\nThere was no game\n\n1638\n01:12:49.440 --> 01:12:51.900\nplay. And he got rid of all the policies, able to deal with all the\n\n1639\n01:12:51.900 --> 01:12:53.120\ncomplexities and George\n\n1640\n01:12:53.120 --> 01:12:57.140\nMarshall. I mean, so I get a lot of inspiration from people, not just existing.\n\n1641\n01:12:57.140 --> 01:12:58.240\nThis is his grant.\n\n1642\n01:12:58.240 --> 01:13:00.980\nI mean, you know, you know, they write him up as a drunkard. He was\n\n1643\n01:13:00.980 --> 01:13:02.240\nextraordinary. But he,\n\n1644\n01:13:02.240 --> 01:13:05.040\nbut his president, you know, one point, the clue class clan comes back and I\n\n1645\n01:13:05.040 --> 01:13:06.160\nthink it was Mississippi.\n\n1646\n01:13:06.160 --> 01:13:13.040\nAnd he used to this guy, the principled ethics, he said that the black people,\n\n1647\n01:13:13.040 --> 01:13:13.360\nthey weren't called\n\n1648\n01:13:13.360 --> 01:13:16.160\nblacks at the time, are citizens of this country and they're going to be\n\n1649\n01:13:16.160 --> 01:13:17.280\ntreated with all the same\n\n1650\n01:13:17.280 --> 01:13:20.630\nrights as everybody else. And he said, I think it was Sherman or Sheridan down\n\n1651\n01:13:20.630 --> 01:13:21.440\nwith troops to\n\n1652\n01:13:21.440 --> 01:13:26.510\nremove the governor. There was no prevericating. There's no game playing. There\n\n1653\n01:13:26.510 --> 01:13:27.360\n's no of its bad.\n\n1654\n01:13:27.360 --> 01:13:30.510\nI mean, it was terrible politics for, for if you wanted to win the Southern\n\n1655\n01:13:30.510 --> 01:13:31.360\nStates. And so,\n\n1656\n01:13:31.360 --> 01:13:36.650\nthere are a lot of people, Abe Lincoln, Nelson Mandela, they just learned from\n\n1657\n01:13:36.650 --> 01:13:37.120\nwatching what\n\n1658\n01:13:37.120 --> 01:13:40.640\nthey do and how they handled difficult situations, difficult people.\n\n1659\n01:13:41.200 --> 01:13:46.790\nAs you think about, you know, the situation that the world faces today, it's\n\n1660\n01:13:46.790 --> 01:13:47.760\nvery complicated.\n\n1661\n01:13:47.760 --> 01:13:52.080\nYou know, I mean, it's a, it's a, it's a very scary world we live in today.\n\n1662\n01:13:52.080 --> 01:13:59.140\nYou know, describe the world you see five to 10 years from now. I mean, you\n\n1663\n01:13:59.140 --> 01:13:59.760\nknow,\n\n1664\n01:13:59.760 --> 01:14:03.510\nyou think we're going to be in this for a long, long time or, you know, the\n\n1665\n01:14:03.510 --> 01:14:04.880\nChina relationship,\n\n1666\n01:14:04.880 --> 01:14:09.140\nbut you know, I mean, how do you, how do you see the world and, and you know,\n\n1667\n01:14:09.140 --> 01:14:10.720\nthere was a time when,\n\n1668\n01:14:10.720 --> 01:14:15.760\nyou know, the global economy was everything and China needed us and we needed\n\n1669\n01:14:15.760 --> 01:14:17.200\nChina, you know,\n\n1670\n01:14:17.200 --> 01:14:22.000\neverything seems to be, you know, I'm very shifting sand. How do you look at it\n\n1671\n01:14:22.000 --> 01:14:22.640\nand how should we\n\n1672\n01:14:22.640 --> 01:14:29.120\nthink about it? It's, it is really complex. And I think the way I look at it is\n\n1673\n01:14:29.120 --> 01:14:30.160\nyou, it's Russia\n\n1674\n01:14:30.160 --> 01:14:34.380\nUkraine war. It's the aiding and abetting of Iran and North Korea of what's\n\n1675\n01:14:34.380 --> 01:14:36.000\nhappening in Ukraine.\n\n1676\n01:14:36.000 --> 01:14:40.260\nIt's Iran's nuclear program. It's the terrorism in the Middle East against\n\n1677\n01:14:40.260 --> 01:14:40.640\nIsrael.\n\n1678\n01:14:40.640 --> 01:14:46.480\nAnd then, and then China's part of that kind of not with it and not part of the\n\n1679\n01:14:46.480 --> 01:14:47.120\nevil part,\n\n1680\n01:14:47.120 --> 01:14:50.160\nbut they're aiding and abetting it with microelectronics and buying oil and gas\n\n1681\n01:14:50.160 --> 01:14:50.800\nand all these various\n\n1682\n01:14:50.800 --> 01:14:54.260\nthings. It's dangerous. And you're talking about this is not the economy I'm\n\n1683\n01:14:54.260 --> 01:14:55.120\nworried about.\n\n1684\n01:14:55.120 --> 01:15:00.440\nThis is the future of freedom and democracy in the world. And, and, and the\n\n1685\n01:15:00.440 --> 01:15:01.120\nonly way to deal with\n\n1686\n01:15:01.120 --> 01:15:04.390\nsomething like this, if you read history is deal with it. Don't just pray it\n\n1687\n01:15:04.390 --> 01:15:05.440\ngoes away. It may not\n\n1688\n01:15:05.440 --> 01:15:08.790\ngo away. You know, when this war started, I told people at Dan's there, that's\n\n1689\n01:15:08.790 --> 01:15:09.600\nalmost on three years,\n\n1690\n01:15:09.600 --> 01:15:13.080\nyou know, and you know, you're talking about Iran being very close to have a\n\n1691\n01:15:13.080 --> 01:15:14.080\nnuclear weapon.\n\n1692\n01:15:14.080 --> 01:15:17.690\nYou know, China is trying to divide the Western world by quite openly. They\n\n1693\n01:15:17.690 --> 01:15:18.240\nsaying it, you know,\n\n1694\n01:15:18.240 --> 01:15:21.780\nwell, we don't want the American system to prevail. We don't want the reserve\n\n1695\n01:15:21.780 --> 01:15:22.800\ncurrency and,\n\n1696\n01:15:22.800 --> 01:15:26.720\nand we want every country not to be part of the American economic system. And,\n\n1697\n01:15:26.720 --> 01:15:27.520\nand the,\n\n1698\n01:15:27.520 --> 01:15:31.680\nI think the public should understand that the military alliance we have and the\n\n1699\n01:15:31.680 --> 01:15:32.160\neconomic\n\n1700\n01:15:32.160 --> 01:15:37.120\nalliances are very deeply related. And our national power is based upon our\n\n1701\n01:15:37.120 --> 01:15:37.920\nmoral power,\n\n1702\n01:15:37.920 --> 01:15:43.040\nour economic power, in addition to our military power. And the moral power is\n\n1703\n01:15:43.040 --> 01:15:43.520\nstill real. We have\n\n1704\n01:15:43.520 --> 01:15:46.770\nthe greatest country in the planet, the freedom of speech and freedom of\n\n1705\n01:15:46.770 --> 01:15:47.760\nreligion and freedom\n\n1706\n01:15:47.760 --> 01:15:52.610\nenterprise. Those freedoms for if you took down our barriers, the immigration\n\n1707\n01:15:52.610 --> 01:15:53.440\nfor billion people\n\n1708\n01:15:53.440 --> 01:15:57.130\nmove here because they want those freedoms. And then they'd invent companies\n\n1709\n01:15:57.130 --> 01:15:58.560\nand I think\n\n1710\n01:15:58.560 --> 01:16:02.590\nAmericans underestimate the power that yes, we've had flaws of a country and we\n\n1711\n01:16:02.590 --> 01:16:02.960\nshould\n\n1712\n01:16:02.960 --> 01:16:07.790\nfocus on some of that, but we should denigrate. This is a shine light, the\n\n1713\n01:16:07.790 --> 01:16:08.720\nshining city on the\n\n1714\n01:16:08.720 --> 01:16:12.920\nhill. And so to conquer these things, you need to make sure America stays\n\n1715\n01:16:12.920 --> 01:16:14.320\nstrong. So America,\n\n1716\n01:16:14.320 --> 01:16:18.150\nwhen I talk about China, we have all the food, war and energy we need. We have\n\n1717\n01:16:18.150 --> 01:16:18.800\npeace in North\n\n1718\n01:16:18.800 --> 01:16:22.560\nAmerica and South America. We got the Atlantic and the Pacific in China. Our,\n\n1719\n01:16:22.560 --> 01:16:23.600\nour GDP per person is\n\n1720\n01:16:23.600 --> 01:16:29.170\n$80,000. There's this 15. They import 10 million barrels of oil a day. They've\n\n1721\n01:16:29.170 --> 01:16:30.400\ngot terrible demographics\n\n1722\n01:16:30.400 --> 01:16:33.630\nand their neighborhood is a very complicated area. They're surrounded by people\n\n1723\n01:16:33.630 --> 01:16:34.320\nwho've been\n\n1724\n01:16:34.320 --> 01:16:37.120\nenemies in the past and they're pissing them all off, not because they're not\n\n1725\n01:16:37.120 --> 01:16:37.760\nthe Americans,\n\n1726\n01:16:37.760 --> 01:16:43.460\ndumb, by the way, but the Philippines, Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, Vietnam, Korea\n\n1727\n01:16:43.460 --> 01:16:44.720\n, India,\n\n1728\n01:16:44.720 --> 01:16:48.310\nPakistan, Afghanistan, and Russia. It's a tough part of the world and they're\n\n1729\n01:16:48.310 --> 01:16:49.120\nkind of hemmed in.\n\n1730\n01:16:49.120 --> 01:16:54.050\nAnd so we have the better hand. The question to me, I worry about is we need to\n\n1731\n01:16:54.050 --> 01:16:55.280\nplay that ham. There's\n\n1732\n01:16:55.280 --> 01:16:59.550\nthere's no, if only American leadership can keep the world free and safe for\n\n1733\n01:16:59.550 --> 01:17:00.240\ndemocracy,\n\n1734\n01:17:00.240 --> 01:17:04.320\nonly American leadership. And we've got to keep together the military and the\n\n1735\n01:17:04.320 --> 01:17:05.040\neconomic alliance\n\n1736\n01:17:05.040 --> 01:17:08.570\nbecause the economic battlefield and these are directly related is about\n\n1737\n01:17:08.570 --> 01:17:09.680\nnational security.\n\n1738\n01:17:09.680 --> 01:17:12.160\nLike, you know, where do we get our penicillin from and where do we get our\n\n1739\n01:17:12.160 --> 01:17:12.880\ngraphite from and\n\n1740\n01:17:12.880 --> 01:17:17.920\nwhere do we get our rare earth from and stuff like that. But it's also about\n\n1741\n01:17:17.920 --> 01:17:18.720\nunfair economic\n\n1742\n01:17:18.720 --> 01:17:22.530\ncompetition because that becomes better than neighbor. And you know, you have\n\n1743\n01:17:22.530 --> 01:17:23.680\nEurope in a very\n\n1744\n01:17:23.680 --> 01:17:27.250\ntough spot now because they have very high energy costs. We have very low\n\n1745\n01:17:27.250 --> 01:17:28.400\nenergy costs. So it makes\n\n1746\n01:17:28.400 --> 01:17:32.810\nit very hard for the industry. And then China is, you know, can sink their car\n\n1747\n01:17:32.810 --> 01:17:33.680\ncompanies.\n\n1748\n01:17:34.240 --> 01:17:38.880\nSo, you know, you have a very complex situation. So, you know, my view is build\n\n1749\n01:17:38.880 --> 01:17:39.760\nAmerica,\n\n1750\n01:17:39.760 --> 01:17:44.630\nremind, start with our own civics. You know, we owe our country why it's so\n\n1751\n01:17:44.630 --> 01:17:45.280\nimportant,\n\n1752\n01:17:45.280 --> 01:17:50.640\nwhat freedom of democracy about build our economy and at the economic power is\n\n1753\n01:17:50.640 --> 01:17:51.440\nthe root all those\n\n1754\n01:17:51.440 --> 01:17:54.280\nthings that allows you to do all the other things and then have a very\n\n1755\n01:17:54.280 --> 01:17:55.520\nsophisticated role about how\n\n1756\n01:17:55.520 --> 01:17:59.010\nwe're going to maintain American leadership. But for America, we're not doing\n\n1757\n01:17:59.010 --> 01:17:59.840\nit, you know,\n\n1758\n01:17:59.840 --> 01:18:02.540\nout of the just the goodness of our hearts. And I also think it needs to be\n\n1759\n01:18:02.540 --> 01:18:02.960\nmore real\n\n1760\n01:18:02.960 --> 01:18:07.840\npositive. You know, we lecture our, and I go all around the world as you did,\n\n1761\n01:18:07.840 --> 01:18:08.000\nyou know,\n\n1762\n01:18:08.000 --> 01:18:12.240\nwe're constantly lecturing people about their labor laws and their climate and\n\n1763\n01:18:12.240 --> 01:18:12.800\ntheir\n\n1764\n01:18:12.800 --> 01:18:16.490\nall these things. And I'm not against further in human rights, but it, but it\n\n1765\n01:18:16.490 --> 01:18:16.880\nshould be\n\n1766\n01:18:16.880 --> 01:18:21.700\nsubordinated. So it needs to be subordinated to national security interests.\n\n1767\n01:18:21.700 --> 01:18:22.880\nAnd, and you know,\n\n1768\n01:18:22.880 --> 01:18:28.410\nreal politic is a great quote when Stalin was telling FDR and Churchill at Yol\n\n1769\n01:18:28.410 --> 01:18:29.680\nta, I think, or\n\n1770\n01:18:29.680 --> 01:18:34.750\nPotsdam, and he was Yolta, that he wanted to do something. And FDR said, Mr.\n\n1771\n01:18:34.750 --> 01:18:35.840\nPresident, the\n\n1772\n01:18:35.840 --> 01:18:39.920\nstate pope wouldn't agree with that. And Stalin leaned forward and said,\n\n1773\n01:18:39.920 --> 01:18:41.280\nexactly how many divisions\n\n1774\n01:18:41.280 --> 01:18:46.640\ndoes the pope have? You know, and that's the game we're in. And we do these\n\n1775\n01:18:46.640 --> 01:18:48.000\ndumbest things in the\n\n1776\n01:18:48.000 --> 01:18:52.060\nname of good that actually make us weaker and make our allies weaker. And so we\n\n1777\n01:18:52.060 --> 01:18:52.880\nhave to be\n\n1778\n01:18:52.880 --> 01:18:55.920\nvery thoughtful and I'll be reaching out to the new administration and that we\n\n1779\n01:18:55.920 --> 01:18:56.560\nreached out to the\n\n1780\n01:18:56.560 --> 01:19:00.990\nold administration. We've hired national security experts to help us help our\n\n1781\n01:19:00.990 --> 01:19:02.480\nclients. And then,\n\n1782\n01:19:02.480 --> 01:19:05.900\nyou know, a little bit of a mea culpa, we met, we all made a mistake and this\n\n1783\n01:19:05.900 --> 01:19:06.320\nisn't,\n\n1784\n01:19:06.320 --> 01:19:09.080\nit should be acknowledged isn't something you have to, we have to whip\n\n1785\n01:19:09.080 --> 01:19:09.840\nourselves about.\n\n1786\n01:19:09.840 --> 01:19:14.160\nWe should have, all of us should have been a little more thoughtful about China\n\n1787\n01:19:14.160 --> 01:19:14.640\ngoing back\n\n1788\n01:19:14.640 --> 01:19:20.560\nabout 10 years. And, you know, at one point, they entered WTO in 2000, but they\n\n1789\n01:19:20.560 --> 01:19:21.280\nwere started\n\n1790\n01:19:21.280 --> 01:19:25.870\nabuse it by 2012, you know, and we should have been more thoughtful than they\n\n1791\n01:19:25.870 --> 01:19:26.960\nwere really thinking\n\n1792\n01:19:26.960 --> 01:19:30.440\nthrough and we were just kind of happy, go lucky. We all of us, you know, and\n\n1793\n01:19:30.440 --> 01:19:31.680\nso was the government,\n\n1794\n01:19:31.680 --> 01:19:35.460\nyou know, so, but now's the time. It's okay. You know, they can't be mercant to\n\n1795\n01:19:35.460 --> 01:19:36.880\nus. They can't,\n\n1796\n01:19:36.880 --> 01:19:40.880\nyou know, beggar thy neighbor economically. They can't do certain things they\n\n1797\n01:19:40.880 --> 01:19:41.920\n're doing.\n\n1798\n01:19:41.920 --> 01:19:45.110\nWe have the better hands. I'm not telling Americans, you know, worry about it.\n\n1799\n01:19:45.110 --> 01:19:46.080\nLet's just make sure\n\n1800\n01:19:46.080 --> 01:19:50.050\nwe build a really strong company. Let's make sure we have unparalleled military\n\n1801\n01:19:50.050 --> 01:19:50.880\nstrength that\n\n1802\n01:19:50.880 --> 01:19:55.710\nis unquestioned because the best way to avoid a war is to be strong. I can\n\n1803\n01:19:55.710 --> 01:19:56.960\nborrow other things. So,\n\n1804\n01:19:56.960 --> 01:20:02.880\nand so, so I just think we got to fight for that America and remind ourselves\n\n1805\n01:20:02.880 --> 01:20:03.600\nand educate our\n\n1806\n01:20:03.600 --> 01:20:07.240\nkids and educate people why it's important, educate people what the interlinked\n\n1807\n01:20:07.240 --> 01:20:08.560\nbetween those things.\n\n1808\n01:20:08.560 --> 01:20:14.400\nYou know, it's, you know, we've covered a lot of fronts here and it's been fun,\n\n1809\n01:20:14.400 --> 01:20:14.720\nyou know, having\n\n1810\n01:20:14.720 --> 01:20:17.760\nthis conversation. I want to have some more with my lightning round of\n\n1811\n01:20:17.760 --> 01:20:18.880\nquestions and are you ready\n\n1812\n01:20:18.880 --> 01:20:24.160\nfor this? I'm ready. Three words to best describe you. Tenacious, relentless,\n\n1813\n01:20:24.160 --> 01:20:25.200\ntenacious and relentless.\n\n1814\n01:20:25.200 --> 01:20:30.720\nI love to learn all the time. If you could be one person for a day beside\n\n1815\n01:20:30.720 --> 01:20:31.440\nyourself, who would\n\n1816\n01:20:31.440 --> 01:20:35.050\nit be? Hey, Blinken. What's your biggest pet peeve? bureaucracy. Who would play\n\n1817\n01:20:35.050 --> 01:20:36.000\nyou in a movie?\n\n1818\n01:20:36.000 --> 01:20:41.690\nMy wife would want Harrison Ford or George Clooney, but they are obviously\n\n1819\n01:20:41.690 --> 01:20:42.480\nbetter looking at him.\n\n1820\n01:20:42.480 --> 01:20:47.040\nWhat's a Greek delicacy everyone should try? Mushika.\n\n1821\n01:20:47.040 --> 01:20:52.160\nThe last time you put on boxing gloves and punch someone. Oh, God. That was 15\n\n1822\n01:20:52.160 --> 01:20:52.560\nyears ago.\n\n1823\n01:20:52.560 --> 01:20:58.940\nYour favorite memory from the US Open Tennis Tournament? Opening a business\n\n1824\n01:20:58.940 --> 01:21:00.000\nweek one day\n\n1825\n01:21:00.000 --> 01:21:04.160\nand seeing Steffi Graph serving in a picture and then I looked really closely\n\n1826\n01:21:04.160 --> 01:21:06.080\nwhat was behind her.\n\n1827\n01:21:06.080 --> 01:21:09.200\nI could see my little daughter who's eight years old looking at her. That was\n\n1828\n01:21:09.200 --> 01:21:10.080\nfun. The best moment\n\n1829\n01:21:10.080 --> 01:21:14.280\nfor me. My daughters, my granddaughters have been in a big, they call it Telet\n\n1830\n01:21:14.280 --> 01:21:14.880\nrons, whatever.\n\n1831\n01:21:15.520 --> 01:21:19.280\nThey've been on that a couple of times when they're watching the... I try to\n\n1832\n01:21:19.280 --> 01:21:20.080\ntake them every year.\n\n1833\n01:21:20.080 --> 01:21:23.920\nWhat's the one thing you do just for you? Read history. Your most prized\n\n1834\n01:21:23.920 --> 01:21:24.560\npossession.\n\n1835\n01:21:24.560 --> 01:21:27.840\nMy family. If I turned the radio on in your car, what would I hear?\n\n1836\n01:21:27.840 --> 01:21:31.200\nJust music, you know, just general music. What's something about you a few\n\n1837\n01:21:31.200 --> 01:21:31.920\npeople would know?\n\n1838\n01:21:31.920 --> 01:21:36.080\nI'm actually a pushover and I'm actually quite easy and a pushover with you.\n\n1839\n01:21:36.080 --> 01:21:39.040\nI think that might be just a little bit of a sense.\n\n1840\n01:21:39.040 --> 01:21:44.320\nNo, no. If you ask all my family members, who's the easiest one when it comes\n\n1841\n01:21:44.320 --> 01:21:44.960\nto where you eat,\n\n1842\n01:21:44.960 --> 01:21:48.720\nwhere you travel, where you do, when you get up, they would say, \"Dad, I just\n\n1843\n01:21:48.720 --> 01:21:49.200\nwant to do whatever\n\n1844\n01:21:49.200 --> 01:21:53.000\nmakes me happy.\" What's one of your daily rituals, something that you never\n\n1845\n01:21:53.000 --> 01:21:53.520\nmiss?\n\n1846\n01:21:53.520 --> 01:21:57.600\nRead the papers in the morning. All right. We're out of the lightning route and\n\n1847\n01:21:57.600 --> 01:21:58.320\nI just got a few\n\n1848\n01:21:58.320 --> 01:22:02.950\nmore questions and we'll wrap this up. I got to ask you, tell us a story of\n\n1849\n01:22:02.950 --> 01:22:03.520\nwhat it was like when\n\n1850\n01:22:03.520 --> 01:22:07.410\nyou had your first child. Well, that's... I think for everyone, that's like an\n\n1851\n01:22:07.410 --> 01:22:08.640\nunforgettable experience\n\n1852\n01:22:09.280 --> 01:22:14.710\nand I remember my wife had some complications with that, so it was a cesarean.\n\n1853\n01:22:14.710 --> 01:22:15.280\nSo she came out\n\n1854\n01:22:15.280 --> 01:22:20.110\nlooking good, but I remember holding her, my little daughter, with a little\n\n1855\n01:22:20.110 --> 01:22:21.120\nteeny rib cage,\n\n1856\n01:22:21.120 --> 01:22:25.920\nand then she stretched. You know, and just holding this little stretching baby,\n\n1857\n01:22:25.920 --> 01:22:26.640\nand then she yawned\n\n1858\n01:22:26.640 --> 01:22:31.340\nand hiccup, which, you know, she did quite a bit. And holding a new life in\n\n1859\n01:22:31.340 --> 01:22:33.520\nyour hands is extraordinary.\n\n1860\n01:22:33.520 --> 01:22:37.830\nYou know, you now have this incredible family with three daughters and seven\n\n1861\n01:22:37.830 --> 01:22:38.880\ngrandchildren and\n\n1862\n01:22:38.880 --> 01:22:43.520\nyou've now got a two-year-old grandson. You have all these daughters and what\n\n1863\n01:22:43.520 --> 01:22:44.080\nwas it like\n\n1864\n01:22:44.080 --> 01:22:50.000\nwhen you finally got the grandson? Well, first of all, I love... I have two\n\n1865\n01:22:50.000 --> 01:22:51.520\nwonderful son-of-laws\n\n1866\n01:22:51.520 --> 01:22:55.120\nand you have a daughter. You probably worried like I did early, like, \"What if\n\n1867\n01:22:55.120 --> 01:22:55.680\nyou don't like the\n\n1868\n01:22:55.680 --> 01:22:58.740\nson-of-laws?\" Like, \"What if they get married?\" And you know, I adore these\n\n1869\n01:22:58.740 --> 01:22:59.760\nkids. They're both\n\n1870\n01:22:59.760 --> 01:23:05.280\nwonderful fathers and husbands and son-of-laws and they're delightful to be\n\n1871\n01:23:05.280 --> 01:23:05.680\nwith. We all\n\n1872\n01:23:05.680 --> 01:23:10.170\ntravel together. We like their families. So we're like, \"One happy go lucky.\"\n\n1873\n01:23:10.170 --> 01:23:11.760\nWhen we five found\n\n1874\n01:23:11.760 --> 01:23:15.120\nthere was a boy. I mean, I didn't see a party even to contemplate it for us\n\n1875\n01:23:15.120 --> 01:23:16.880\nbecause I never had a\n\n1876\n01:23:16.880 --> 01:23:22.640\nbaby boy. And so, but he's quite... I put him in a quite a pampered category.\n\n1877\n01:23:22.640 --> 01:23:23.760\nYou know, all\n\n1878\n01:23:24.160 --> 01:23:28.080\n60 other kids, you know, pick them up and carry them around and play with them.\n\n1879\n01:23:28.080 --> 01:23:29.280\nAnd I don't think\n\n1880\n01:23:29.280 --> 01:23:34.850\nit has any idea how he's... I have to learn to grow up with. I mean, I could\n\n1881\n01:23:34.850 --> 01:23:35.600\nimagine all those\n\n1882\n01:23:35.600 --> 01:23:39.170\ngirls, you know, whenever he brings home a girlfriend eventually, they're gonna\n\n1883\n01:23:39.170 --> 01:23:40.080\nwant all one of that\n\n1884\n01:23:40.080 --> 01:23:46.480\nto girlfriend. I bet so. You know, you and I both had our health issues and you\n\n1885\n01:23:46.480 --> 01:23:47.760\n've struggled\n\n1886\n01:23:47.760 --> 01:23:54.130\nwith cancer. And, you know, how is that... How much did that really change you\n\n1887\n01:23:54.130 --> 01:23:55.120\nor did it?\n\n1888\n01:23:55.120 --> 01:23:58.080\nIt did. You know, and I think it changed me over time. I don't think you\n\n1889\n01:23:58.080 --> 01:23:59.040\nrealize immediately what\n\n1890\n01:23:59.040 --> 01:24:03.050\nit does, you know, but as you know, when someone says, \"You have cancer, your\n\n1891\n01:24:03.050 --> 01:24:05.120\nlife changes.\" And\n\n1892\n01:24:05.120 --> 01:24:08.920\nI tell a lot of people, \"Everyone knows they're gonna die.\" But that... When\n\n1893\n01:24:08.920 --> 01:24:09.600\nthey say it, all of a\n\n1894\n01:24:09.600 --> 01:24:14.770\nsudden, it's like in your face. And you have to contemplate dying all the time\n\n1895\n01:24:14.770 --> 01:24:15.920\nuntil even now,\n\n1896\n01:24:15.920 --> 01:24:19.360\nyou're a survivor. But all the time until they say you're in remission. And of\n\n1897\n01:24:19.360 --> 01:24:20.160\ncourse, you know,\n\n1898\n01:24:20.160 --> 01:24:25.370\nradiation and chemo could be absolutely devastating. And I remember I wouldn't\n\n1899\n01:24:25.370 --> 01:24:26.320\ngo tell my parents.\n\n1900\n01:24:26.320 --> 01:24:29.760\nI told my wife, \"You have to tell them because I didn't want to tell my parents\n\n1901\n01:24:29.760 --> 01:24:30.560\n. I may die before\n\n1902\n01:24:30.560 --> 01:24:36.200\nthem.\" And so the thing to change is it does make you live a little more\n\n1903\n01:24:36.200 --> 01:24:38.000\ndeliberately about how you\n\n1904\n01:24:38.000 --> 01:24:41.210\nrun your life and what you do and how you spend your time. It wasn't like I was\n\n1905\n01:24:41.210 --> 01:24:42.000\ngonna change... I\n\n1906\n01:24:42.000 --> 01:24:45.890\nlove working. I love my country. I love... It didn't change that, but it did\n\n1907\n01:24:45.890 --> 01:24:46.960\nchange how you deal with\n\n1908\n01:24:46.960 --> 01:24:51.480\ncertain people and certain issues. And I think because of that, when I had the\n\n1909\n01:24:51.480 --> 01:24:53.040\nsecond health issue,\n\n1910\n01:24:53.040 --> 01:24:57.530\nI was being grilled into the surgery. And I knew it was maybe not even 50-50 I\n\n1911\n01:24:57.530 --> 01:24:58.320\nwould survive,\n\n1912\n01:24:58.320 --> 01:25:02.630\nthat I didn't have any regrets. Because the ones I might have had actually\n\n1913\n01:25:02.630 --> 01:25:03.760\nfixed the first time around.\n\n1914\n01:25:03.760 --> 01:25:10.920\nYou know, a mutual friend of ours, you know, it's the late head of Goldman\n\n1915\n01:25:10.920 --> 01:25:11.440\nSachs,\n\n1916\n01:25:11.440 --> 01:25:16.850\nJohn Weinberg. He had this line which I love. He said, \"Either grow or you\n\n1917\n01:25:16.850 --> 01:25:18.240\nswell.\" You know,\n\n1918\n01:25:18.240 --> 01:25:25.220\nhow do you manage not getting a big head? I mean, I mean, just think of what\n\n1919\n01:25:25.220 --> 01:25:26.320\nyou run and\n\n1920\n01:25:26.320 --> 01:25:31.510\neverything you've accomplished. This is my belief, and I always quote him too\n\n1921\n01:25:31.510 --> 01:25:32.240\nin that because\n\n1922\n01:25:32.240 --> 01:25:37.520\nthat when people get the big job, it's shocking sometimes how they act. And all\n\n1923\n01:25:37.520 --> 01:25:38.320\nof us who get the\n\n1924\n01:25:38.320 --> 01:25:42.160\nbig job is actually more... creates more humility because how little you know\n\n1925\n01:25:42.160 --> 01:25:42.960\nabout certain things.\n\n1926\n01:25:42.960 --> 01:25:46.930\nAnd yet you're responsible for them for other people. But I think it is how you\n\n1927\n01:25:46.930 --> 01:25:47.840\n're grounded.\n\n1928\n01:25:47.840 --> 01:25:51.520\nAnd that grounding comes from your whole life experience. But it's the\n\n1929\n01:25:51.520 --> 01:25:52.720\ninsecurity. It's the\n\n1930\n01:25:52.720 --> 01:25:57.300\ninsecure people who when they get that big job, it makes them so insecure that\n\n1931\n01:25:57.300 --> 01:25:58.400\nthe way they fix it\n\n1932\n01:25:58.400 --> 01:26:02.860\nis by controlling the meetings, by having friends of Bill, by having friends of\n\n1933\n01:26:02.860 --> 01:26:04.400\nthis, by everyone\n\n1934\n01:26:04.400 --> 01:26:07.900\nknows this, what they want. They never want to be embarrassed. They never want\n\n1935\n01:26:07.900 --> 01:26:08.880\nto look bad. They're\n\n1936\n01:26:08.880 --> 01:26:12.710\nthe ones who won't go on some of these trips because they're afraid of being\n\n1937\n01:26:12.710 --> 01:26:13.520\ncriticized.\n\n1938\n01:26:13.520 --> 01:26:17.280\nAnd you see these traits. And you see them with... And that doesn't have to be\n\n1939\n01:26:17.280 --> 01:26:18.000\nthe CEO of a company,\n\n1940\n01:26:18.000 --> 01:26:21.310\nit could be the CEO of a division. And other people, there's none of that. You\n\n1941\n01:26:21.310 --> 01:26:21.760\nknow, I tell\n\n1942\n01:26:21.760 --> 01:26:26.840\npeople and you know how insecure your listeners may understand that when you\n\n1943\n01:26:26.840 --> 01:26:28.480\nrun a company, so\n\n1944\n01:26:28.480 --> 01:26:33.200\nmake believe I'm running a trading desk that does mortgages. And if I want to\n\n1945\n01:26:33.200 --> 01:26:33.680\ndo more,\n\n1946\n01:26:33.680 --> 01:26:36.400\nI have to call that guy who runs it. He knows more about it than I know anybody\n\n1947\n01:26:36.400 --> 01:26:37.040\nelse. I say,\n\n1948\n01:26:37.040 --> 01:26:40.100\nhey, what about this? What about that? Why don't we do this? But maybe he gets\n\n1949\n01:26:40.100 --> 01:26:41.040\npromoted.\n\n1950\n01:26:41.040 --> 01:26:44.330\nAnd now he's running six divisions, mortgages and credit and equities and stuff\n\n1951\n01:26:44.330 --> 01:26:44.800\nlike that.\n\n1952\n01:26:44.800 --> 01:26:48.870\nWell, all of a sudden he's an expert in one and he's learning five. And then he\n\n1953\n01:26:48.870 --> 01:26:50.080\ngets promoted again.\n\n1954\n01:26:50.080 --> 01:26:56.080\nNow he's an expert in six and he's learning 30. And so the higher you get, the\n\n1955\n01:26:56.080 --> 01:26:56.880\nmore insecurity\n\n1956\n01:26:56.880 --> 01:27:01.900\nbreeds, which is why I think that some people, they turn inward, they get\n\n1957\n01:27:01.900 --> 01:27:03.120\nscared, they block it,\n\n1958\n01:27:03.120 --> 01:27:07.840\nthey have, they cover up their anxiety and other people. They're more like, you\n\n1959\n01:27:07.840 --> 01:27:08.000\nknow,\n\n1960\n01:27:08.000 --> 01:27:11.120\nthey realize they don't know that stuff and they reach out for help. And they\n\n1961\n01:27:11.120 --> 01:27:11.600\nhave that\n\n1962\n01:27:11.600 --> 01:27:14.610\ncuriosity and recognition and all those things that are about heart and\n\n1963\n01:27:14.610 --> 01:27:15.120\ncuriosity.\n\n1964\n01:27:15.120 --> 01:27:18.670\nBut I think it's how you're grounded. I don't think, I don't think it's just,\n\n1965\n01:27:18.670 --> 01:27:19.440\nit happens.\n\n1966\n01:27:19.440 --> 01:27:25.200\nYeah. You know, and, you know, one of the things about you, Jamie, you've been\n\n1967\n01:27:25.200 --> 01:27:25.280\nin\n\n1968\n01:27:25.280 --> 01:27:29.830\nposition for a long time at J.B. Wargachay said, you know, many would call you\n\n1969\n01:27:29.830 --> 01:27:31.440\nlike the John\n\n1970\n01:27:31.440 --> 01:27:37.550\nWooden of financial expertise, coaching, whatever. I mean, you are the John\n\n1971\n01:27:37.550 --> 01:27:39.440\nWooden. I mean, and, you\n\n1972\n01:27:39.440 --> 01:27:45.890\nknow, it was very difficult when John Wooden retired to ever replace John\n\n1973\n01:27:45.890 --> 01:27:46.800\nWooden. I mean,\n\n1974\n01:27:46.800 --> 01:27:53.840\nhow do you, how do you think about replacing your, your, your self? And do you\n\n1975\n01:27:53.840 --> 01:27:54.480\ngive yourself\n\n1976\n01:27:54.480 --> 01:27:56.880\nhigh marks on your process that you have for that?\n\n1977\n01:27:57.840 --> 01:28:01.070\nYes, I so far, you know, obviously the decision is the most important, but the\n\n1978\n01:28:01.070 --> 01:28:01.680\nboard is fully\n\n1979\n01:28:01.680 --> 01:28:05.370\nengaged. That my board knows everybody. They see them freely. They take them\n\n1980\n01:28:05.370 --> 01:28:06.720\nout. So there's no\n\n1981\n01:28:06.720 --> 01:28:10.750\nblockage of those folks. We have the same list everyone has about, you know,\n\n1982\n01:28:10.750 --> 01:28:12.400\nall the skills you\n\n1983\n01:28:12.400 --> 01:28:16.790\nneed and stuff like that. But at the end of the day, and, you know, I put\n\n1984\n01:28:16.790 --> 01:28:18.800\ncharacter in culture as a,\n\n1985\n01:28:18.800 --> 01:28:24.430\nyou know, that's a cinequanon, heart, curiosity, work at drive, grit, you\n\n1986\n01:28:24.430 --> 01:28:25.520\nbetter have a little bit of\n\n1987\n01:28:25.520 --> 01:28:30.170\ngrit. This is basket of things that make up a human being. It's not one thing.\n\n1988\n01:28:30.170 --> 01:28:32.320\nAnd we have people\n\n1989\n01:28:32.320 --> 01:28:35.580\ngreat skills across the board. And I think the board believes that and I\n\n1990\n01:28:35.580 --> 01:28:36.720\nbelieve that I took the\n\n1991\n01:28:36.720 --> 01:28:41.420\nboard through successful succession planning, unsuccessful session planning. So\n\n1992\n01:28:41.420 --> 01:28:42.160\nlike, what worked\n\n1993\n01:28:42.160 --> 01:28:44.670\nand what didn't work, several people, my board have been through it. So they've\n\n1994\n01:28:44.670 --> 01:28:45.360\n, you know, told\n\n1995\n01:28:45.360 --> 01:28:48.290\nthe board how they approached and stuff like that. So I'm doing it pretty\n\n1996\n01:28:48.290 --> 01:28:49.440\nsystemically. And we think\n\n1997\n01:28:49.440 --> 01:28:53.160\nwe've got people who've got that full broad range of capabilities. I don't like\n\n1998\n01:28:53.160 --> 01:28:53.920\nit when someone\n\n1999\n01:28:53.920 --> 01:28:57.440\nsays, you know, what are you looking for? Our technologist or marketing person?\n\n2000\n01:28:57.440 --> 01:28:58.000\nNo, no,\n\n2001\n01:28:58.000 --> 01:29:01.950\nyou're looking for that whole set of stuff that they carry the culture, they\n\n2002\n01:29:01.950 --> 01:29:02.800\ngot the energy they\n\n2003\n01:29:02.800 --> 01:29:06.510\nbring people with them. They don't have to be perfectly anyone thing. But they\n\n2004\n01:29:06.510 --> 01:29:07.040\nhave to have\n\n2005\n01:29:07.040 --> 01:29:11.210\nthat spectrum of stuff where people actually want to work at the company, they\n\n2006\n01:29:11.210 --> 01:29:11.840\nget the best out of\n\n2007\n01:29:11.840 --> 01:29:16.470\nthe other people. And I think we have many people can do that. You know, last\n\n2008\n01:29:16.470 --> 01:29:18.160\nquestion here, you know,\n\n2009\n01:29:19.280 --> 01:29:24.310\nif you could give one piece of advice to any leader, what would it be? I would\n\n2010\n01:29:24.310 --> 01:29:25.760\ngo back to make sure you\n\n2011\n01:29:25.760 --> 01:29:30.880\nhave heart and curiosity and give it them and understand that you don't know it\n\n2012\n01:29:30.880 --> 01:29:31.360\nall and\n\n2013\n01:29:31.360 --> 01:29:35.920\nyou're not even the expert anymore. Jamie, I want to thank you for all this\n\n2014\n01:29:35.920 --> 01:29:36.800\ntime. And I want to\n\n2015\n01:29:36.800 --> 01:29:42.350\nthank you for your friendship. You know, you're always there. You're always\n\n2016\n01:29:42.350 --> 01:29:43.600\nthere. I mean, you know,\n\n2017\n01:29:44.640 --> 01:29:49.040\nwe, you know, we don't get together all the time. But what we do, we pick up\n\n2018\n01:29:49.040 --> 01:29:50.240\nwhere we last left each\n\n2019\n01:29:50.240 --> 01:29:55.760\nother. And, you know, last year, my wife passed away in February, you and Judy\n\n2020\n01:29:55.760 --> 01:29:57.840\nwere there. And\n\n2021\n01:29:57.840 --> 01:30:03.350\nyou're there for people when they need them most. And I thank you for being\n\n2022\n01:30:03.350 --> 01:30:04.720\nthat kind of friend for\n\n2023\n01:30:04.720 --> 01:30:10.100\nme. You're an amazing guy. And I'm blessed to have you as a friend. David, you\n\n2024\n01:30:10.100 --> 01:30:10.560\n've always been\n\n2025\n01:30:10.560 --> 01:30:16.620\nthere for me also. And both you and I love you. And it's great spending some\n\n2026\n01:30:16.620 --> 01:30:17.600\ntime with you.\n\n2027\n01:30:17.600 --> 01:30:19.840\nYeah. Thank you very much, buddy. Appreciate it.\n\n2028\n01:30:19.840 --> 01:30:28.880\nYou know, there's just nobody like Jamie Diamond. He's my friend. And I know I\n\n2029\n01:30:28.880 --> 01:30:29.600\n'm biased,\n\n2030\n01:30:29.600 --> 01:30:33.800\nbut I believe he's one of the best business leaders of our time. And I can tell\n\n2031\n01:30:33.800 --> 01:30:34.080\nyou,\n\n2032\n01:30:34.080 --> 01:30:39.280\nhe is the absolute real deal. He doesn't just talk a big game about giving a\n\n2033\n01:30:39.280 --> 01:30:40.240\ndamn and having\n\n2034\n01:30:40.240 --> 01:30:46.550\nheart and grit. I've seen it close up and personal by myself. And he is not\n\n2035\n01:30:46.550 --> 01:30:47.680\nafraid to roll up his\n\n2036\n01:30:47.680 --> 01:30:52.620\nsleeves and dive into the work no matter how hard that work may be. And I know\n\n2037\n01:30:52.620 --> 01:30:54.240\nyou picked up on this,\n\n2038\n01:30:54.240 --> 01:30:58.480\nbut Jamie has no patience for the BS and bureaucracy that might get in the way\n\n2039\n01:30:58.480 --> 01:31:00.080\nof the work. That's a\n\n2040\n01:31:00.080 --> 01:31:05.320\npowerful mindset and one we need to all learn from. So I got a question for you\n\n2041\n01:31:05.320 --> 01:31:06.480\n. What's getting in\n\n2042\n01:31:06.480 --> 01:31:11.120\nthe way of the work that's really going to move your organization forward? Is\n\n2043\n01:31:11.120 --> 01:31:12.880\nit too much bureaucracy,\n\n2044\n01:31:12.880 --> 01:31:18.700\ninternal politics, endless, this week, beyond the lookout for it and push back\n\n2045\n01:31:18.700 --> 01:31:19.840\nagainst it?\n\n2046\n01:31:19.840 --> 01:31:24.320\nBecause if you want to get results, you've got to get past those distractions\n\n2047\n01:31:24.320 --> 01:31:24.960\nand do the real\n\n2048\n01:31:24.960 --> 01:31:28.600\nwork of running your business. So do you want to know how leaders lead? What we\n\n2049\n01:31:28.600 --> 01:31:29.360\nlearned today is\n\n2050\n01:31:29.360 --> 01:31:33.480\nthe great leaders get to work. Coming up next on how leaders lead is Harris\n\n2051\n01:31:33.480 --> 01:31:34.560\nBarton. He's the\n\n2052\n01:31:34.560 --> 01:31:39.600\nfounder of managing director of H Barton Asset Management and a three time\n\n2053\n01:31:39.600 --> 01:31:40.960\nSuper Bowl champion\n\n2054\n01:31:40.960 --> 01:31:46.310\nwith the 49ers playing alongside grades like Joe Montana and Jerry Rice and\n\n2055\n01:31:46.310 --> 01:31:46.960\nSteve Young.\n\n2056\n01:31:46.960 --> 01:31:49.760\nYou don't have all the answers. I promise you don't have all this. But there's\n\n2057\n01:31:49.760 --> 01:31:50.320\nsomebody out there\n\n2058\n01:31:50.320 --> 01:31:54.230\nthat has a bunch of the answers and you should start listening. So be sure to\n\n2059\n01:31:54.230 --> 01:31:55.280\ncome back again next\n\n2060\n01:31:55.280 --> 01:31:59.010\nweek to hear our entire conversation. Thanks again for tuning in to another\n\n2061\n01:31:59.010 --> 01:31:59.760\nepisode of How\n\n2062\n01:31:59.760 --> 01:32:03.340\nLeaders Lead where every Thursday you get to listen in while I interview some\n\n2063\n01:32:03.340 --> 01:32:04.160\nof the very best\n\n2064\n01:32:04.160 --> 01:32:08.080\nleaders in the world. I make it a point to give you something simple on each\n\n2065\n01:32:08.080 --> 01:32:09.280\nepisode that you can\n\n2066\n01:32:09.280 --> 01:32:15.280\napply to your business so that you will become the best leader you can be.","

Jamie Dimon 0:00

A lot of businesses you've seen this, you know, you if you have a second rate execution, you're in trouble. You know, if you have a first rate execution, you can run a pretty good business, whether or not you have a perfect strategy.

David Novak 0:20

You know, some leaders talk a big game. Others, they just deliver big results. If you want to know what separates the two, keep listening. Welcome to how leaders lead. I'm David Novak, and every week I have conversations with the very best leaders in the world to help you become the best leader that you can be. My guest today is Jamie Dimon. He hardly needs an introduction. But since 2006 Jamie has served as the chairman and CEO of JP Morgan Chase, the largest and most profitable bank in the world. And in this conversation, you're going to get the full Jamie Dimon experience. He's got so much insight into what it takes to cut through the BS and execute big changes in your business. I love that about Jamie. He has a real allergy to anything that's going to gum up the works with too much bureaucracy or over strategizing. The great leaders know, and Jamie knows it for sure that you get results when you get to work. If you want to cultivate a bias towards action. You're in the right place. Here's my conversation with my good friend and soon to be yours, Jamie Dimon,

you know, Jamie, you've done a million interviews, okay? And I'd kind of like this one to be a little bit different, maybe even different than anything I've ever done on on this show, but I want, I know you're a master storyteller. Basically, we're going to try to share the stories of your life and the learnings that you had along the way. And you know, I know it's going to be a lot of fun for me, because I've, I've been a part of at least a good deal of your business career. I know your father was a stock broker, and we've talked a little bit about him, but I've never really heard you talk a lot about your mother. Could you tell us a story about your mom and and and a leadership lesson that you you picked up from her? Yeah,

Jamie Dimon 2:17

I mean, I'll do both a little bit. You know, my parents died in 2016 and if you'd asked me before that about, you know, credit for you did, and how you grew, and stuff like that, I probably didn't talk about a lot. But now I'm looking back and you realize that very fundamental values you have, you know, come from them. And the values were pretty basic, and I call them Greek, but they probably were just values that a lot of you know, folks have one is you do the best you can, and whatever you do, you do the best you can. It wasn't about how you did. It was simply that, did you do? Did you give it your best? The second was, you treat everyone well, like you know, if you mistreated anyone, like a waiter or taxi cab driver, that was unacceptable. And as a codicil to that is you didn't allow other people to be bullies, you know, it sometimes got you in trouble a little bit. And the third was, is do something with your life, you know, but it's about purpose. So my dad was a stock broker, but he was much more interested in philosophy than being a stock broker and and the purpose could be so my older brother became a physicist, a real physicist, or MIT near Chicago, Niels Bohr Institute, my twin brother became an educator, but it was doing something purpose, you know, you know, draw your Picasso and and make the world a better place through that purpose. And you could be art, it could be science. Could be teaching. It could be could be being a parent. It wasn't, you know, anything that just do it well and have a purpose and and they were pretty strict about that, but both of them, you know, my mom, my mom was a Spartan and I said, I really mean that. I mean she was a beautiful woman, but she was pretty tough, like I never I saw her. The only time I saw her cry was when JF Kennedy got killed. I got home that day and she was crying. Other than that, not even when you told us you had pancreatic cancer or, you know, and she said, I've had a great life. And so she was, I would say, kind of stoic she became very early on in women's liver. And she also went back to college. When I went to college, so she hadn't finished college. She'd gone for a year to a Brooklyn College or something like that, and then stopped to be a mother. So she always did things like, Oh yeah, I'll tell you a quick little story about my mother. My mother, we must be 12 or 13 years old, and my parents are having a glass of wine in the living room, and my father said to my mother something about her name was Themis, which means justice in Greek, by the way, I believe the gods of justice. And he used the word you're acting hysterical. And I didn't remember those books about the second Mystique, or the second the second sex. And she said, I told you not to say that Ted. He said, Well, when you're acting hysterical, you're acting hysterical. She said, I told you not to say. That. And she said, he said it one more time, and she walked up to him and took her wine in his face and left the room. And he was in shock. And the three boys, we've never seen anything like that, not in my house. And now, of course, the three of us were like, the revolution has begun. Because he was, he was the boss, like, just you, and it was like, we're gonna overthrow the King. And to his credit, when we all sat down for dinner a little bit later, he came back and said, I just want you all to know your mom was right.

David Novak 5:27

So that sounds like the Jamie diamond. I noticed the other. The other

Jamie Dimon 5:32

thing about Mother, you gotta say my mother was a, was a, was a Freudian, so my father kind of was, but my father was much, was more like us. He like, what did they do? But she was like, Why did they do it? So you have these conversations, I don't care why they did it, you know, it's what they did and so, but because of that, I read a lot of Freud before I finished college. I mean, I read almost all before I finished college, just how, you know, how people think. And of course, a lot of Freud was wrong, but it is a real insight into trying to figure out how the mind works.

David Novak 6:04

Yeah, how much do you think that really helped you as you started working with people, quite

Jamie Dimon 6:10

a bit. You know, I always try to be, I think both sides, you know, trying to act and do something, but also try to figure out people and their, you know, their motivations. They're all those EQ things you talk about. Are they real or authentic? What motivation? Why? Treating people respectfully? So yeah, I do think it helps in part of your life, you're always thinking how the world works, but also how people work. And both, as you know, both those things can be very complicated, and we still spend most of time trying to figure that stuff

David Novak 6:41

out. You know, how did the fact that your dad was in finance and, and, you know, was totally indoctrinated in that world, you know, how did that impact, you know, where you headed and, and when you think about your dad, what was the biggest thing you learned from him that you took into the business world. So

Jamie Dimon 7:02

of the three boys, I was the only one who took an interest in finance. I worked from the Samuel basically, like doing mailings and answering phones and stuff like that when I was 14 or 15. But I was interested. I was always, I always read the papers. I always read the business section. I read the sports section. I read the so he nurtured that, you know, he he didn't make anyone do it. Like I said, my older brother became a physicist, my other brother educator, which my parents enormously respected, but I was interested in that part of the world, and so he'd give me stuff to read. I remember reading a book that Merrill Lynch had done, like how to read, an income statement, a balance sheet. I read Graham and Dodd. There's a big, thick one, but there's a one called the Intelligent Investor. I probably read it when I was 15, and I bought my first document about 14 or 15, and so that my interest was peaked, I wasn't heading to be a stock broker. In fact, my father didn't want me to his his view, you know, a lot of people like the grass is green on the other side. He didn't think it was what I should be doing or stuff like that, but, and I didn't had to be a stock broker, but, yeah, of course, it nurtured my interest. And, you know, I wrote a couple of papers in college about business and stuff like that, so I was interested. And, but the interest was more about building something, building something great. You know, I would read the stories about companies that had really done interesting stuff and built things and bought things and, you know, made, you know, made more employees and stuff like that. So, so, yeah, it nurtured. It gave me stuff to read. I remember a very humbling thing he came home one day a couple of times. Remember young brands to take a business you think you would understand, like a restaurants, you know, and and you can understand what the profits are, and you actually eat there, as opposed to, like, you know, chips, which is hard for a kid, but he would, he would take in the back then annual reports were much shorter, and he would rip out the page and had the price, they say, read this thing and tell me you would pay for it. And for anyone out there, I don't care how smart you are, how good I think you are. You would be humbled by that exercise. And so it really becomes a discipline about what makes you think about things now you think about values and and

David Novak 9:11

that's so cool, so great. And so you grow up in this rough and double neighborhood. You get the street fights, and here you end up going to Harvard. Okay, I don't really see you as a Harvard guy. I know you could definitely, you know, you know, do well there, but you know, that had to be a different kind of place for you. So

Jamie Dimon 9:31

I, so I went to Tufts University. I got it was one of those deferred admits. So, you know, you're going to go, but back then you had to work for two years. I worked at a consulting company that doesn't exist anymore. And I, I, you know, I did well at school, and I was, I didn't go in very nervous like that. But my wife tells the story, because I met my wife in the second year there, as you know, that, you know, I was the guy in the class, like wearing the leather jacket, a t shirt and jeans, you know, not prep. You. You know, and I hadn't gone to Harvard undergrad, or Yale or Princeton or a lot of that, but I loved it because the Socratic method, you know, for those who don't know, you're sitting in class with 80 people, you read cases, and then the real world is messy. So this is not like theory anymore. You can really talk about capital markets. It isn't like, you know, supply demand curves. It's like, Why did things trade this way, and why do people do those things? Why do so many business ventures succeed and so many fail and and be learned that in even today, if you and I went there and sat through a good case, as your friend Andy Pearson taught and I went there when he was there, you learn a lot from listening to other people. And that is a great I still do that. You sit around the table, why? What? When you went to other companies or things, and so I liked it. I wasn't, you know, people were afraid of public speaking, had a hard time. People who weren't a little proficient in numbers might have had a hard time. But I kind of, kind of loved it. Made some great friends there. So I still speak to, you know, you know, Steve Burke, yeah, my wife wasn't that happy with it. It made some people kind of nervous. But you know what? You settle in once you see the people. You get to know them and having fun every day. It's pretty good.

David Novak 11:10

So you meet your wife, Judy, at Harvard. When was that? Aha moment. You knew that she was the one.

Jamie Dimon 11:18

So she was introduced to us by a friend, Mandel. You may actually have met at one one point along the way. And, you know, I, I've she pointed out to me. And Judy was very pretty, you know, very smart, and I was so I was interested, intrigued. Right off the bat, she had asked to meet me, you know, and she thought I was just, I don't know, kind of cool, or something like that. She talked about wearing sunglasses and T shirts, and I really, really wear sunglasses. I'm not quite sure what she was talking about, but I called up her house. She lived with like six other women. One of them was the President of Finance club. I was a Vice President of Finance club and and I was speaking to her about some event we were doing. And then Judy got in the phone and said, Hey, do you want to play some tennis? I said, Well, sure, we hit it off right away. She says, went to have a molten or shake whatever that day. She says, I made her pay, which I don't think it's true, but and then we she had, she had a boyfriend, by the way, wasn't at Harvard Business School, but we started seeing each other almost every day for dinner after that, and and that that was that story,

David Novak 12:20

fantastic. And how long you've been married? Now? Married,

Jamie Dimon 12:24

4342 years. What would you say

David Novak 12:27

are the biggest learnings you've had on how to make a marriage work for that length of time and have the success you guys have had as partners?

Jamie Dimon 12:35

I mean, when you give advice in this you know that you you learn a lot. You listen to do it well, like, all the time. And so I'll tell you some of the things I think we did well. First, we were devoted to each other and kids. So we want to have kids. Want to have a family. She had a professional career, but, but for anyone out there, the younger people who listen to this, that's when you have a job and kids, and you're still, like, you know, 28 years old, that's when you're kind of burning the candle at both ends, and now you have a real obligation as to family, your wife, your kids and stuff like that. And I always tell people so the lessons, and I didn't always do these right, is you need to make sure that you take care of your mind, your body, your spirit, your soul, your friends, your family. It doesn't happen automatically. And you and I have seen a lot of people professionally, in any profession, and maybe not in profession, they start to neglect that stuff. And you're, you know, it's bad, it's bad for your health, it's bad for your family. You end up getting divorced. So it takes time, and it takes attention, and that's the most, probably the most important thing. I think we never did this, but I think it's very smart for, you know, I was working so hard that we took family vacations. We my wife and I very, really took a vacation as the two of us, which is now, like a standard thing, you know, people now, like they have the, there's a name for it. I forgot the name for it is my kids do it. I think it's just great, which, you know, and then we also get the grandkids a little bit. But I think people should do that focus, you know, spend time at the end of the day. It's going to be time and quality and so,

David Novak 14:05

so you know, you meet your your wife at Harvard, you get, you know that that education that everybody craves for, and you loved every bit. Tell us the story of how you how you landed your your first job out of Harvard. When

Jamie Dimon 14:20

I graduated Harvard, I was, I was going to Wall Street, you know, not necessarily want to be an investment banker, but they pay a lot, and you learn a lot, you know. And I just figured that first couple of jobs just learn as much as you can. And I had offers from Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Lehman Brothers, which are three of the best, but Sandy Weill ran the firm that my father was at, and I knew him a little bit. I met I'd worked there in one summer when I was in college. Now, remember the old days data entry? I basically did data entry for budgets, and I had written a paper on the merger Shearson and sheerson on Hayden stone. My mother sent it to him, and he sent me a letter saying, this is a great paper. Or, you know, would you come? Would you want to come talk to me? So I went to talk to him, and he offered me a job working. He just soldiers and Hayden stone to American stress and get a job in the investment bank. I told him no, because I, you know, Goldman. I mean, Goldman is basically pay me a lot more and I and you, but more important than that is you get a lot more experience. And I thought, why would I give up? You know, great experience, Goldman, higher pay and and then he called me back. I'd become a baker scholar at Harvard physical which was important to him. He likes that kind of stature and status versus, you know, the top three or 4% of the kids at the school. And he then he said, You know what? I just sold a company here to America Express. He was very down to earth back then. I don't remember if you knew him, way back then, and America's press was more of a bureaucratic, you know, company. They said, I don't know how it's going to turn out, but I would, I would love to have you here as my assistant. You'll learn a lot, you'll see a lot, you know, you can always go back to Wall Street. And that really intrigued me, because I'd never been in, I really never seen a big corporation. I never, I thought, you know, he was an interesting he was very different than corporate America fundamentals, like a Jack Welch type at the time. And I did figure out, if it didn't work out, I go back to Wall Street or something so and I could totally my interest was in building something. It wasn't necessarily being an investment banker, and he had built Shearson Hayden stone, and then he had these big dreams about what might happen the American Express and financial services. So I took the crap shoot and joined him for a lot less pay. I mean, a lot less pay. But I didn't really care that much about that. I really cared about the experience.

David Novak 16:37

Tell us a story about where you think you picked up and gleaned the biggest insight you learn from Sandy, well, and he was iconic. He was very much like a Jack Welch,

Jamie Dimon 16:48

you know. So, I go to America. He wasn't the president. He became the president shortly after that. So, Sandy, Sandy, he, he was down to earth. He, you know, he didn't. He worked all the time for the company. Me, he'd have breakfast, lunch, dinner, you know, selling, buying, hiring, recruiting, always thinking about mergers, always what we can buy, what we can buy. So, like a lot of the birds we did over the next 20 years were because relationships we had to build up over a long period of time. He hated the bureaucracy at American Express. And, you know, one of the things that we all learn in life is when you like, when you work at certain types of things you don't like, you also learn very good things, what not to do. They were hugely bureaucratic. So they had, they had the board, and they literally everyone prepared for the board meeting, and then they had the pre board prep, and the pre, pre board prep. And it took. It took every month, and you remember Bob lip, who's still doing great, I speak to every now and then. Bob lip hated that stuff. A lot of the big banks had it was just bureaucratic, a lot of politics inside, and people didn't share information, and who's up and who's down and and internally, it was less of a meritocracy, more of a Who do you know and where did you go to school, at least early on. And he just, he just hated all that stuff. In fact, Bob live, of course, you may remember he when we got to travelers, when he joined us at commercial credit, is like, you couldn't make a presentation the board with the PowerPoint. Like he just said, we're not doing it, and you're not prepared. So I've never prepared a presentation for the board, ever, not once. I've done it for big deals we did and stuff like that, and so, so, so Sandy was always hustling that stuff. Always Wanted to Know the facts and the Bs and the bureaucracy, and it was a fanatic about expenses and growing. And we bought Lehman. We were there. He's always out with the salespeople, shaking hands, doing the dinners. You have a lot of CEOs who just wouldn't do that, you know, they just are too busy to actually hang out with their own people. And so you learn all those lessons.

David Novak 18:47

Do you think leadership has has evolved in terms of what really makes a leader today versus in those days? And and do you see a difference? There is

Jamie Dimon 18:57

definitely a difference. And I, when you ask questions like that, always think about what change, what is the same and what changed? So let me just do what's the same? Okay? Because I think you gotta be very careful about it, like it's totally different. I think in all these things, you know, like Andy Pearson was, was one of the great CEOs of all time you Jack was, before Jack was but the the mind power, the analytics, the detail, the repeat, the rinse, the go out to the store, the observe what's going on, to listen to people to do it again, branch by branch, product by product, service by service. A lot of companies don't do that, you know, and they've literally, and then even politics inside a company stops, you know, a full undressing of your own performance, like, how are we actually doing why? You know, if you're if you're in Pizza Hut, you know what not why is just Taco Bell maybe doing better? Well, why is McDonald's doing better? This company overseas doing better, and if you don't do that, it's very hard to become a great company. So I don't think that's changed. I think some companies rely too much on outside advisors and all that. Another thing that has. Not changed is, I'm gonna say great administration, meaning, you know, you look at and you've seen it, where some people run companies, they're a hot mess. People don't know what their jobs are. Meetings don't start in time. They don't return their phone calls. They're too busy, you know. And I was used as an example, a military example, but Eisenhower, you know, during uh, Norman D and D Day, 150,000 troops, 7000 ships, hundreds of aircraft, 30,000 paratroopers, food, guns, bullets, timing, planning. And, you know, you got to run stuff. So you may, you may not be the greatest analyst in the world, but you got to run it. And the people have nowhere their jobs are now you're doing it. And the last part's changed a bit, okay, and not for everybody, but, and I think it's the most important part. And you, you know, you were part of this too, but when I started working, there was a lot of the, you know, the pound the table and, you know, the politics and but I think what really makes a great leader is this part, which is heart and curiosity. Now you use recognition. I want to explain to your listeners a little bit how I see recognition, and what I learned from you your heart is you actually give a damn. It makes you authentic. You're not trying to be perfect. You make lots of mistakes, but they see. People know you are or they aren't. How you treat people, what you say, you do what you say, you follow up. And for everyone on the podcast, you've all seen the BS, ers out there, people, they think they're getting away with it. They generally aren't. And, you know, people don't want to work for those people and and you know, you can read all these leaders, whether it's military or history or business. You earn trust and respect. You earn it by by every day showing that you're going to work as hard as they do. You care as much you're trying to do the right thing. You're not trying to be right. You're the first person to say, I made a mistake, you're the first person to share credit. You're not the first person to blame the other person. Hang people high, make an example of someone unless they're doing someone unethical. And curiosity is the same thing, but you're always learning. So, you know, I used to go to some branches, you know, some stores with you every now, and the restaurants, and you're always learning. You go to, I can go to any branch that JPMorgan Chase today and sit down with the tellers. I'm going to learn some about which systems we have, but bank America does better. Why do we do this? Why does it take some as How come we can't do this in the branch and but, but there's a humility to that. There's a humility that being curious and learning, and I still see here, a lot of people don't want to get in the road. They don't want to go they don't go to a call center. They don't because they don't want to hear about the mistakes they're making and what they can do better from someone who, you know is Junior and doesn't have the same pressure they have. But as you know, you know the only reason you have these corporate executive floors. I love what Home Depot does. For those who don't know, in the podcast, Home Depot calls corporate headquarters. They don't call it global headquarters. They don't call it corporate headquarters. They call it store Support Center. That's why they're there, because there's a store, and in that store you have people coming in and and then you know how you treat people, not just the customers, but how the employees are treated, reflects to how the customers can be treated. So it's that whole combination of heart, curiosity, giving a damn, which makes you authentic, which is why people want to work for you, and you have much more of that today and in general, in the workplace, which I think is a very good thing, a little more empathy, a little more thought, something that gets overdone, but and then you you're you always talk about recognition, but you remember me telling you what I learned from you about what recognition really is. Recognition is really telling someone else what they did, acknowledging that you didn't do it, they did it. It's acknowledging to recognize someone else. You have to acknowledge you have to be curious. You have to understand that you're you're constantly trying to figure out what you can do better, and that the boss's job is to do, help everyone do the best they can. And recognition is this whole kind of part. I was never good at it early on in my career, but this whole part about the recognition that thank you, you know, sending a note to an employee whose customer sent a great letter about her. So it's constant learning, constant recognition, and people like it. Early on in my career, when I particularly was on Wall Street, I always thought recognition meant that people would be pounding the table for more compensation. But within the even with investment bankers, it was not true. They actually want to be appreciated for the job they did. It made them feel better as human beings, and they, you're, acknowledging that they did somebody for a client. That was great, you know, it made them feel important. It wasn't going to, you know, feed, may feed their you a little bit, but it wasn't. It's just treating people respect. Remember, he wrote that book? Oh, great one. Yeah, so the guy's trying to learn from everybody, and as he's learning and making mistakes, but that's how you do it, and it's that humility and recognition. I remember one year I decided to ask the senior investment bankers what they should get paid. And, you know, I thought might be a terrible idea, because at the end of the year, you have all these terrible fights about stuff like that. And I said, don't put in a memo. Just sit down with me. Tell me, did you have a good year? What do you think? What do you do? Well, we didn't do well, just verbal conversation. It's amazing that most of them were much more honest that way. They literally said, You. Know, you know, I did this. I think this, and I think my cop should be around a, b and c. And it was when you didn't do that that they came in with high demands, you know. And so I think just showing respect to people goes a hell of a long way, like those who watch TED lasso, yeah, that Ted lasso. The beauty of that story is that Ted lasso. What? He didn't know anything about soccer, but he can get them to football, get them to play as a team. Get rid of the demons each one have. Get them to respect each other more. Get them the fun doing it as

David Novak 25:31

you were moving up with and taking on, you know, new companies with Sandy while you and lip, you know, travelers, commercial credit, commercial credit. You You were always, you know, buying these companies and then turning them around, you know, you know, what did you learn are the basics of fundamental turnaround. What do you have to do?

Jamie Dimon 25:53

Yeah, so if you look what we did, we were quite successful, but it was not strategic. It was more opportunistic. So you're right. We bought companies. They had nothing to do with each other sometimes. And all cultures are very different. So the first thing I did was got to literally, would sit down with the management team like dinner, get to know them. What do you read? What do you look at? How do you run your joint? What reports do you have? Like, you know, what do you who would it be? And you could see instantly that a lot of people step up right away and they want to build a great company. They tell you what's wrong. And a lot of people, they defend themselves. They, they're blocked. They, they're they, they won't look at the numbers the right way. They look them in the way that makes them look better, which, of course, is, you know, is a disaster for any business and who's open. But the first thing is walk in their shoes so and go to the belly of the beast. So when I remember travelers the insurance company, I went to go get to know all the actuaries and all the underwriters. You know, when we, when we bought salmon brothers, I put an office on the trading floor, the fixed income train for the belly of the beast. Right there, they were shocked. I started going through all their trades and all their positions and take them to dinner and and then, and then start fixing it. I never we never looking back. We never said we're going to do a transformation. We just sat down with the business heads and said, What do you do? What are you doing? What are we going to build? What are you going to grow? How come not going to Salesforce? How come we're not doing this? How come this company is doing better? Should we should we fix the technology or expenses too high, you know, bureaucracy slowing us down, and then just start working it. Man, just over and over and over and and of course, you know, strategy is important, but execution often is more important. These already existing companies that usually were doing something poorly, and we got to buy them rather cheaply, and we basically fixed them. It doesn't mean we did the best in Australia. Strategy, you know, we tried to do that. But and, and you learn, you learn their cultures are different. You learn you shouldn't. You should never go into another place and just impose the way you do stuff on them, you know, because there's they exist for different reasons. You know, in the different regulations and laws and requirements, and you're hiring different types of people and but one thing that I learned all companies, a lot of companies, have bureaucracy. Bureaucracy is always growing. There's always politicians. They're always making it worse, and they're always waiting to see, are you going to be one of those, or the politicians can own you. So a lot of those companies, the corporate staff, tried to own the bosses on the floor. Oh, we'll take care of that. Don't worry. You're pretty little ahead. There's no reason to go to the sales conference, you know? I remember I got to bank one, you know? I i When I found out they were having some major sales conferences, they didn't even tell me about it. I mean, I was livid. I had to go, you know. And so you learn the cultures are quite different, and then you start working it. And then also, when you build things like, you know, if you if you decide that their systems are terrible in some area, you don't go in and say, your system is terrible. How can you put it stupid? I'm gonna redo this for you and get McKinsey or someone to come and rewrite it. You form a team inside to do it. You bring in some outside people. So by the time it's built for the stores, the restaurants they built it, you just nurtured it, and it came out a way that everyone thought was the best way, and and then you, you and I have learned all the tricks along the way to figure out the politicians and the Bs, ers, it's the meeting after the meeting. You know, it's coming. And presenting numbers in a different way than the company presents the numbers is they're backing out allocated expense when that includes rent or basic stuff. It's the people who, who you can see in the room. No one will disagree with them. It's the people who, when they go on the road, you know, and you start asking the loan officers or salespeople or branch managers. Hey, what can we do better? And they're kind of twisted in their chair. They don't like the fact that branch managers saying, Well, you know, why can't I change that my own hours? Why can't I do this? And why can't I do that? And they get upset. And so you're seeing this all the time. These not good managers. Some are bad, some are political. Some are just rigid. And you. So you learn along the way how to do all those things, how to get the numbers right, you know, report it right, share it with all the management team. So a lot of lessons I got from doing that. I mean, I used to go, you know, literally, sign checks some of these companies. I look at every vendor thing for a month or two to see how they're spending money. And then you'd be shocked. They're buying so they have no idea what they're buying, you know, agreeing they're signing. Okay, okay with me, but they don't even know what it is, and meanwhile, the person responsible for is not getting the bill. You know, I go on and on and on about the things you learned by going through these.

Koula Callahan 30:34

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David Novak 31:21

I've watched you in action, and you know, you clearly have high performance standards, but you have a ton of heart. I mean, you know, and you're right. That's why people basically do want to work with you and stay with you. And you said, you know, as you were building, you know, all these companies with Sandy wild, you said he didn't really mentor you. You learned a lot by watching him and then applying what you saw to how you would go about leading. But you put a lot of heart into into those businesses, and then Sandy ends up, you know, terminating you, you know, you get fired by the guy you know. And that had to be traumatic, especially when you've given so much of your heart to those companies. You know what sticks you with you the most about that experience, that that you've tried to take forward, and the way, how you you lead?

Jamie Dimon 32:15

So our relationship deteriorated from 1994 to 1998 when we did city, he set up a thing which I vehemently disagreed with, which was, you know, well, they gave me the title president, which I didn't ask for. And he had told John Reed Jamie, he's pushing me back, which I never did. I don't believe in fake titles. I was going to run the global investment bank, and then they changed it to be tri head to the global investment bank. So this is a global, complex business. I was like, try heads. Are you kidding me? So they had Try, try heads and CO heads of almost every division reporting to co head, Sandy and John. So just think of the complexity of that. And I told them, This is going to destroy the company. I said, You guys and John Reed wasn't used to being taught to like this by so and so he liked me, but he thought he was a little too aggressive. I said, this will destroy the company and and the second we announced this, people were digging trenches, stock playing ammunition to see who's going to win these battles. Sandy, John Jamie, this, this one, this, I said, and by the time you joke is figured out, we're going to lose a lot of good people. And I actually was the first casualty. Sandy called me up. We have, I had 100 kids at my house recruiting, you know, for Solomon, Smith Barney and these, you know, we had a management at four. He said, Can you come at 12? I said, No, I'm having a big buffet breakfast for these people. He says, important. So I go up there. I go to a room like this, Sandy and John are there, and they make a bunch of changes, and they listed change a, change B and change C, as we want you to resign church. I said, Okay, so I knew the game. They already talked to the board. They already lined it up. I was actually shocked about A and B. I was not shocked about C and I should have known that, you know, and Sandy, you know, I look you got to ask him the motivation that John Reed wanted to leave, I was gonna be I was the natural success. So that's one of the reasons John wanted to be at the company. Sandy convinced John that, if you know he, it's more important these two guys get along. And I think a lot of people, think a lot of the board members told me, because I knew them all, a lot of was that, you know he, that if you stayed, Sandy would have to go, and he didn't want to go. And obviously I think the board made a mistake, and this is where board should do the right thing and not the thing that makes the boss happy. Lessons Learned. Our relationship gone south a lot before that, I called him up after a year. He didn't call me. I called him up after a year and said, you know, same time he got together, he treated me, true. They treated me terribly in the way out, literally, they threw me on the street like they gave me an office, and then called me up right before Christmas. You got to leave the office. They said, Well, why? They say, Well, we're not going to give presidents of the company offices anymore. I said, Yeah, but you already have 5x Presidents and Vice Chairman of the offices. They said, Well, this moment going forward, not you. They said. Really? They said, Yeah, you have to lead by December 30. Anyway. I saw city a year later, and I walked in and he wanted to do it the four seasons. He was nervous. I was not. I said to him, city, I'm gonna talk just a minute about the past. I don't think you did the right thing for Citibank, but I want you to know that I made a lot of mistakes, and whether it was 6040, or 4060, doesn't really matter. And I listed some of my mistakes, and some of my mistakes were lessons, you know, forever, like I acted some of the things I did, I acted out of anger. I was so angry about some of the stupid things, it just flew out of me sometimes. And you know, as you know, that that almost always backs fires. It doesn't matter whether you're right or wrong. And so, I've got, you know, you learned that some and you've seen this too, where some people it just enough isn't enough. And, and it's not about being proud of the beautiful thing you built. Is being about, you know, what does it mean for you? How's look for you, and, and, and, you know, ultimately, it destroyed the company.

David Novak 35:56

After you got terminated, I remember you picked up boxing, you know, what'd that do for you?

Jamie Dimon 36:04

So what happened was, I went, they asked me, Would you want to do press that night? And I said, Yeah, I want to do that from home. Would you want to see the press? I said, Yes, I met the senior team. I wish them all the best that night. Maybe 50 100 people came to my home, you know, and they said, don't tell us any and it was like going your own way. They were toasting me and my net worth, not my self worth that was involved. So I never, I never felt bad. Some people outside treated me like a leper, like, stay away from this guy. And other people like, literally, I'd be running through the park. Yay. Diamond you showed him. Got myself fired and but I immediately kicked me out right away. So all of a sudden, you're working 80 hours a week to zero. So I was like, What the hell am I gonna do? So I made a list of stuff. So I bought, like, literally, I literally went to the bookstore. I bought like, 30 or 40 books, and I read, instead of reading the paper the morning for an hour and 15 minutes, it was two and a half. And then I made a list of those things I want to do, visit my brother in Denmark. I drove cross country by myself. I took my had a friend doing boxing at a hole in the wall gym downtown. And so I did all those things, you know. And the only thing that was on the list, I think I did not do is climb Kilimanjaro. I took my family on a long trip to Europe, you know, luxury leisure type of trip, uh, took them on RV trips and I was thinking about what I wanted to do, you know, I wasn't as, you know, I mean, I was on your board. It was always fun for me.

David Novak 37:27

Yeah, well, I remember, you know, that that at that time, you agreed to go on the young board. And I remember Andy Pearson, who we've talked about a little bit. He was talking about putting this board together, and he said, you know, you got to get this young whipper snapper, you know, Jamie diamond, to come on the board. You're going to be around for a long time. You and him will be a great team. And boy, was he right. And what'd you learn just serving on the young board? Because I saw such a different business than, than, than the finance world,

Jamie Dimon 37:57

yeah. Well, so first of all, I think it's great to see how someone else runs it. I love talking CEOs. How do you run your joint? Because lot of CEOs run it differently, and they're all good. Some are terrible, but, like, how do you run it? What do you do? What do you spend your day? How much fun Do you have? You know, like, and it's the same with the board. Like, boards are like juries. Man, they they could be, I've dealt with tons of boards, and they could be bureaucratic, they could be politicized. But Andy, as you know, put together like one of the best boards of all time. You know, Ken Langone was on the board. Bob Paul Rick from Target, who, you know, was a great company. John Weinberg would run Goldman Sachs and Bob Holland and and he ran it. I mean, I Andy, Andy was, I still would say the best to watch of anyone I've ever seen about how he just ran the meeting all your guys would come present and how they're doing here. And he was, and he always had a very good way of saying, that's not exactly the way it works. I forgot how he exactly did it, but it wasn't waste of time. Got right to the point was never rude, tough, but never rude. Always evaluating the people, how they thought about a problem, how they thought about an issue, how they attacked the problem. Now, you guys had tons of problems when we were there, and you know, each one, how you attacked it. You know, you had the GM the GMs problem. Then the distributor went bankrupt. And, you know, all these things, but the real you learn in life, how do people deal with problems? The board was completely open. It was a lot of fun. We went to taste your foods, and you always took us to branches, to restaurants and and you just learn how people think, you know, and even if you don't join another board, I'm not any other board. Now, I tell people it's a really good thing to see how other people do things, because I go to anything. I go to where other CEOs are there, you know, you know, the Business Roundtable or business counselor, stuff that you've done, I'm taking notes, but I hear someone did X. That's a neat idea. Why don't we do matter of fact at my board I still do since we last met. So you did it every board meeting, and I've been doing it every board meeting since bank one. I still do it today. And. And it was your idea, like how you and for those on the podcast, it was telling the board honestly everything important since you last met, good, bad, ugly, it could be the product, the food, the tasting, the profits, the China Business, the an honest assessment from the CEO. Like I said, The Good, the Bad, the Ugly as a great tool. I still type it out, you know, and I still keep it. In fact, I was being say about having some of my people run the businesses do it themselves since we last met, as opposed to a presentation, you know. And so I still learn things from tons of other people how to do things better. And so

David Novak 40:35

you were on the beach, as they say in finance terms, you didn't have the job. You come to the young board you're working on that, What process did you use, and what'd you learn from it? As you, as you worked your way into the CEO job at Bank One

Jamie Dimon 40:49

I was very deliberate. Okay, so I was fired in December, but I had to negotiate out it took me to March or April. So I decided I'm going to take the summer off, take the kids around the world and and started kind of really thinking about September, but I did take a lot of phone calls. I gave I took everyone respectfully, somewhere you could call us, almost insulting what they offered me. I made sure the head owners knew I wanted to work, you know, the major folks out there, when I came back in September, I was always polite and responsive to everyone. I had an office. I started seeing people all the time. And I had ideas, I'm gonna start my own merchant bank. I wrote up documents. I spoke to people. I thought about working with people, getting partners, kind of wild in an idea. Didn't love it. I started, I could have just been my own investor. Started talking to people. I went to see Cameron, going about, what is it like? I didn't love it. I went to I thought about just teaching or writing fundamentally, and I realized I was ready. I wasn't done with the big game yet, and I had a lot of offers. Some were CEO. Some was I was offered to run the Global Investment Bank of one of the big European investment banks. I went there to see the people in London, and had dinner there, a bunch of them. And after doing I said, There's no way I'd work for these guys. I mean, Hank Greenberg called me up at AIG, you know. And I said, going from standing wild to Hank Greenberg, you'd have to have your head examined. And Jeff Bezos, who I hit it off with in 1999 looking for president, and he and I hit it off. I still talk to him. He's an outstanding guy. I just, it was just a bridge too far for me. I didn't necessarily fully understand the business. I had to move a cup family to Seattle. I love the idea of never putting a suit on again. You know, getting a house boat somewhere. And there are tons others that people actually spoke to me about, but it came down at the time to Home Depot and bank one and Home Depot. I love those people. I thought Bernie, Marcus, Arthur, blank. I went down running with blank and and Ken Langone did knees bees. But I, when I first met them, I said, just, just. So you guys know. So I want you to know this until you called me, I'd never been in a Home Depot. I said, so it's not, this is not my natural habitat. Merchant and, and they were very much like, we don't care about that. You'll learn we want the guy at the heart and the soul. And, you know, you have the way they think. And I went to stores with them and stuff like that. And I actually shopped houses in Atlanta. I mean, you know, we were taken seriously, looked at school for the kids, and then bank one was there. Bank One, as you know, as you know, is a troubled Midwestern bank, and probably would have surprised people. I went to it, but it was my natural habitat. You know, I when I look at a Trading Book or a loan book, I mean, I'm used to, I wasn't used to all the business they had. Moving to Chicago is going to be hard, but I wasn't done yet. And, you know, they offered me chairman, CEO, and I decided I put half my net worth into at the time I was kind of, I tied my my, my shoes to it. I was gonna go with the ship or not. And very much, like we did with Sandy, wild bag of commercial credit, prime America, build it. Make it where you can build something great. Don't cry over spilled milk, you know. I still, I still deal with a lot of CEOs who they complain about their own companies endlessly, you know. And I always like, you know, you know, put your pants on. I mean, just grow up. The world was never perfect. You were. No one ever said they're gonna hand you, you know, everything in a silver platter. Business is tough. People disappoint you, you know. And so I decided to go for that. They made me chairman, CEO. I put up my money in moved the family. I called you up, got you on the board. I needed some fresh blood on the board.

David Novak 44:31

That was, that was a lot of fun watching what you did there is graded and and then, you know, you turned around Bank One, a great success story, and JP Morgan Chase decides to to come and acquire bank one. What did you learn? Orchestrating that with with the JP Morgan Chase, CEO at the time, Bill Harrison, how'd you? How'd you bring it all together?

Jamie Dimon 44:59

Right, yeah. So Bill Harrison had been not my direct banker, but it would. I knew him from way, way back. And as you know, Bill's a real quality guy. And so we did that deal at the end of the summer of of oh four, 2004 but he and I had started talking in oh two or three. I go see him regularly, and I told you guys in the board that that there are two or three very natural merges for us. One was fleet, and one with JP Morgan Chase and and JP Morgan Chase fell by the wayside because he'd gotten too big, and they bought Chase and but because bank one did better and better, and they were having some tough times, it kind of came in that target range again. And so I went to see Bill, Bill, and I kept on talking. He said to me at one point, you know, I can't do a deal now, my shareholder will kill me, but it's so natural. I don't have a successor, really. You know, would you promise me that you will call me if you're ever going to do something? And I told him, Bill, I cannot promise that, but I understand about the industrial logic. And, you know, I started talking about the industrial logic the people now, in reality, it was what it was called. He called it a merge of equals. We got the premium, but we also got the control. If you remember correctly, I was ordained to be the CEO, literally, from day one. So I wasn't the CEO from day one, but the board was gonna be 5050, and are you gonna be the CEO in two years, unless 80, unless 75% of the board said no. So that meant for my directors have to vote against me. And you may remember, the last minute there was a little fight at the board, our board, you guys were at dinner at my house in Chicago,

David Novak 46:36

and you know, we had, I was a big part of that fight, as a matter of fact, yeah, like,

Jamie Dimon 46:39

but something like, don't do the deal. You can't trust these New Yorkers.

David Novak 46:43

If Jamie can't be the CEO, day one, we can't do that. Well, that was a good reason to keep the keep, keep, keep it in Chicago. Yeah, that was, they were coming up with all kinds of reasons, you know. And I said, I said, Look, if Jamie can't work with Bill Harrison for two years, and there's something wrong with Jamie diamond, that's correct. And they said, Well, you remember, I'm not gonna mention his name. He said, But Well, you've never been in a boardroom, you know, like that. You're missing something here. I said, Well, I do have a whole lot of common sense, and, you know, there's a big fight. But anyway, the rest is history.

Jamie Dimon 47:19

You You're absolutely correct, and you make a judgment call in life. And that we all thought we could, I knew I could trust Bill Harrison and he wanted to leave. They needed a successor, and they needed someone who's going to run it. And so the company, neither bank wanted, just gone from being a terrible company to a mediocre company. You know, Chase. JB word, Chase was part of a lot of deals taking place, but it never completely performed. So in reality, we're putting but the industrial logic was perfect. Two not great credit card companies and credit card North COVID scale put together. We had a great retail system. They didn't, but they had great branches in New York. You know, we both had middle market businesses. They had an investment bank. We didn't, but we could bring those products and services to the clients around the United States. They were global. We were not we just started working it like literally just been. And I remember starting these like you've had the business reviews by business, payment systems ops, by country, by investment banking, middle market banking, consumer banking, credit card. And never said we were transformed, but just went to work at making it a better company, being honest assessment, setting real targets for ourselves about what we should be performing, removing the management there's political and bureaucratic, but Bill and I spoke all the time like I I was running most that stuff, but he was completely supportive. In fact, there was one time that a at a meeting of someone said, you know, Jamie was very rude at this meeting we had. I was criticized them for these insurance deals they thought they were doing to protect the company from auto warranties. And he went on and on that Jamie did this. And Bill said, Excuse me, that did not happen. He said, Well, I You weren't there. He said, I was, I was in the back of the room, and he was asking you a lot of very good and smart and tough questions. And, you know, Bill was a little surprised the how deep I went to all these businesses at one point. Said me, are you gonna do this all the time? As Yeah, I said, pretty much. I leave, you know, you know, very often, you can always agree with this up I was doing me say, it's your company. You know, you're gonna be CEO in a couple months, whatever. But then it came to one guy that I wanted to ask leave, who I thought was a great politician, but a complete self server, took care of his the buddies of this and was kind of a hatchet man for Bill himself. And I went to see Bill, I said he's got to go. And Bill said, Well, I totally disagree with you. He's been key here, blah, blah and and I went home that night, and I came back in the next day and I said, Bill, I am we've done everything together here. I'm really uncomfortably, completely disagree. I would feel much more comfortable if you go ask some of our other senior management. People about what I said, is he trusted, is this, is that? And build his credit. Went out and spoke to four or five people and came back said, You were right, and I should have known. And so we were kind of lockstep every step of the way he did. And even, you know, since, even since he left, which is now, you know, almost 20 years ago, you know, he's been anything you could do to help. And even guys like the guy who ran Dennis Weatherstone, I don't know if you knew him, who had been a former CEO of of JP Morgan itself, you know, called me up in attaboy every quarter, you know. I mean, there's some very sweet guys that John B McCoy, yeah, you know, the older guy who started bank one and start whether they went from one branch to whatever, 1000 branch to whatever 1000 he would come see me every now and then, just to say, You're doing a great job, kid,

David Novak 50:46

that's great. You know, one of the things that you know, being on the board and watching you in action, you know, you establish gold standards, not within the financial industry, but also other other other categories that might be better at processing. Or you pick whatever measure that you're going after, and you really drove those gold standards home. And you talk about working it, you know, if somebody asks you about strategy in those days, you'd say, I don't really care about that strategy. You know, I'm not. You know, our strategy is always changing. The strategy changes basis what we see. But you've never been one, or maybe you've changed. You know, you were never one back then, to be talking about your five year plan or your tenure, you know, you didn't spend a lot of time on that. You spent a lot of time working the business up against gold standards. Is, how do you how do you think about strategy? Yeah,

Jamie Dimon 51:35

so the first thing I always do, the first thing we're not, and you've seen this before in some of these big companies they're always talking about. I call it strategic. So instead of like, are you doing a good job running your business? You know, remember Bob loop, you say about strategy, it works. Just do more. Like, don't know. And they had outside consultants. I got rid of all that kind of stuff. And so my first goal is just run the place. Well, consolidate the systems, branch by branch. Then you develop plans. They were strategies. These things work, do more of these branches? Close these things down, take all the products and services. JP, Morgan, you know, like into the middle market. Like the middle market does, 35% of our US, domestic investment banking now. And that was a strategy you already you have the engine and just get more products across. This, you know, this very costly enterprise that got rid of, I got rid of lots of the company that didn't fit, and you maybe, so I sold this, closed it down. But every part of the company fits, and they feed each other. Private Bank and middle market use, the consumer branches, the investment bank is hugely benefited by the private bank and by middle market banking. You know, payment systems are hugely benefited by being in the consumer business and the wholesale business. And so there are these large strategies. But, you know, I didn't let people spend that much time BS in about it like we set the strategy, and now we have a plan. So, you know, even, like we started building the chase wealth this story, and they have to do this any we have a lot of skunk works going on. We always have that. So, like, one, which probably started when you were there was, you know, we had these branches in the wealthiest parts of the world, but we didn't do very much money management, like wealth management. And I had wanted to do a test in White Plains when the wealthiest, zip codes in the country, and we did the test, and it didn't work. And then people here, you got to cash valuation money. I was like, well, let's try again. Did the test didn't work, and sometimes you'll just keep modifying it, like, just keep turning the dials a little bit. That business now manages a trillion dollars. And so once we got the strategy right, but that this was by testing. So sometimes you should kill these hobbies, and sometimes you should, but there's like 10 of those. Like, how we built, we're in all 50 states now. You know, building branches. How we when we bought WAMU, which is all consumed, we put on top of that private banking, middle market, small business. So the cost of the branch system was, all of a sudden fee and lots of the businesses. So there are these big strategies. But I think the problem with strategy, when people overdo it is a they spend a lot of time making excuses for why they're not running a good business. It's sort

David Novak 54:12

of like you. The way I would describe what you just described, is you work, you keep working on what's working, and then you work on what is it. And they just keep evolving that as you you go forward, yeah,

Jamie Dimon 54:22

always very question. I see, you know, we have to transform the business, because you are doing that over time. But you, but you're doing it, you have to do it at a very detailed level and a strategic level, yeah, and, but, you know, a lot of businesses you've seen this, you know, you, if you have a second rate execution, you're in trouble. You know, if you have a first rate execution, you can run a pretty good business, whether or not you have a perfect strategy.

David Novak 54:44

We'll be back with the rest of my conversation with Jamie Dimon in just a moment. You know, talking about his college days, Jamie mentioned Steve Burke, who is the chairman, CEO of NBC Universal, in Steve's episode of how leaders lead, he talks about the same idea. Of humility and curiosity that Jamie does, including this concept I love about seeing your team as a symphony. What

Steve Burke 55:07

we have tried to do is make sure that our executives don't have big egos, and that our executives don't run around saying it's all about me, or I'm indispensable, or, you know, I did this and did that, and we have a philosophy that we call symphony, which is, I don't like the word synergy. I think synergy has become almost a, you know, an MBA, you know, catch phrase. We call our effort of working together symphony. And one of the advantages our company has for someone with a good idea is, if you bring a movie to us, and we think it's a great movie. We will make sure that it gets supported on USA sci fi e entertainment in the Olympics. And when we identify the priorities and we go to our executives, is non negotiable, everybody's going to get behind these big events. And what we found is we have 22% of all television viewing in America when we get behind promoting a new theme park ride or the Olympics or a new movie, it works. And one of the interesting side benefits of the symphony program, it was a message, a cultural message, to everybody in the company, that no individual business is important more important than the company as a whole, and teams do better than individual performers. And I think one of the ways that you you get really creative people to work with you and for you and bring you great ideas is is if they feel like what you're going to be doing is going to be about their idea, not about you. So I'm very much on the watch for people inside our company who get too carried away with themselves and forget the reason why we're here, which is bringing great ideas to America. And people

David Novak 56:50

go back and listen to my entire conversation with Steve, Episode 18 here on how leaders lead. You know, Jamie, you're famous for a lot of things, but you're, I think, most famous for how you navigated our country and JP Morgan Chase through the Great Recession of 2008 What was your big takeaway from all that took to really get that done? Well, first

Jamie Dimon 57:15

you got to go before the crisis started. And it goes back to my upbringing. But my dad is I had seen Marcus go up and down. I remember him coming home and, you know, people's incomes went down. I remember in 1974 and 1982 New York City was desperate. You know, so this Great Wall Street, it was desperate. You know, restaurants were closing, stores were closing, apartments were being sold for back maintenance. Literally, people forget that 1982 and so I even way back then, when I was with Sandy wild at Travelers, prime America, etc, I used to do presentations for all the stock brokers about how we have to be able to deal with all these ups and downs. And, you know, part of the name of the game is just continue serve your clients. Do a great job in the downs, not just in the ups and like, don't over celebrate the rising tide, you know, but be prepared for the tide going out. When I got to JP Morgan, I was very tough about capital, liquidity, profitability, because I knew that the shit at the fan early on, we would have had a real problem. So before that, and then get real risk management in place. So if you talk to folks here, they were shocked that the detail I'd go into, every position, every risk, the what ifs, how bad can it get? And I made them do stress tests that that they were like, I'll never happen. I said, I don't care what happens. And by it's like, kind of what happened, by the way. I said, I want to know if it happens that we survive to serve our client, because you can't tell me it's not going to happen. So risk management is much more being prepared for a whole range of outcomes, and what ifs then the shit at the fam. But we were ready. By then. We had more liquidity, more capital, more profitability. And you may remember the risk committee, the board. At one point, I left you guys at the board. I can't even say I had to go to the risk committee. And we were going through literally, client by client and country by country, and loan by loan, and helping people.

David Novak 59:04

We went. We went and watched that you actually had us come watch you watch the sources get

Jamie Dimon 59:08

made. But people say, What did you do different? Nothing other than we already had teams. We already we already had an army. You know, we already had things to go. So the risk committee used to meet once a week for a couple hours, and all of a sudden it was meeting, and it was kind of more formalized, you know, reviewing certain things. And all of a sudden it was meeting five times a day, every day for a year, okay? And I mean every day. And I mean, you know, going to 10pm and 5am because you had Asia, we had to be up for that. And we were on calls all the time with regulators and governments and clients and and, but the machine was working. And then the formality, when you were there, the formality went away. It's like, Hey, David, don't come up and make us a presentation about the mortgage problem in Denmark. Bring up whoever you need to describe and tell us what they want to do, you know. And so we were making, you know, Battlefield decisions. Is to help, mostly to help clients, because JP Morgan was actually in quite good shape. And, and then you just learn how people operate under stress and strain. I mean, some people are great and some are some are just children, just just children.

David Novak 1:00:13

So, all right, and, and so you literally helped take the country out of this crisis. What was the single biggest, darkest moment that you had during that, that period? And how did you you said, you know, some people don't really know how to handle crisis. How did you personally handle it?

Jamie Dimon 1:00:33

You know, I'm so the first there was Bear Stearns, you know, like, so, the world was Rocky. Subprime was going down. Some hedge funds had problems. Quad funds were having problems. Markets were down. Bear Stearns stock had fallen from, I think it had a market cap of 20 billion to 15 billion to 10 billion, which is a real sign of a problem in a financial company. And then I got the phone call on March 13, Thursday, 2008 I was actually having dinner my parents at a Greek restaurant down the street here, and it was maybe nine o'clock at night. I had to leave the restaurant because I couldn't hear and Alan Schwartz, the CEO of bears, and said, Jamie, I need $30 billion tonight, otherwise we're gonna go bankrupt in Asia in the morning. And even I said, Alan, I don't even know how to get $30 billion but let's, let's, you know, have you spoke to the Secretary of Treasury and he had, I called up, literally, our senior people. I said, you know, get dressed and go to the office. And we had hundreds of people come in that night, start going through the books of Bear Stearns. And I, we told Hank Paulson, look, let's just get them to the weekend. That gives us, you know, 48 hours to figure out if we could save bear terms. And so we had this lifeline, which I won't go through with the Federal Reserve, about how we're going to do that. That was our idea, by the way. And now I had 1000 people, 2000 coming in, you know, doing what you call due diligence, every loan, every asset, every real estate, HR, policies, litigation. Can we handle it? You know, what are the integration what's going to cost? How much would you write down? And we did, you know, probably six months of work in two days. And bought Bear Stearns that night, signed the thing that night. That is that kind of thing is the moment where you're breathless. It was the same way I felt when I signed the document. It's like one signature, merged bank one and JP Morgan, so I sit in my office late at night and I'm signing that piece of paper, I know I'm taking an extraordinary amount of risk, which we think we can handle, and I'm also subjecting my people to a tremendous amount of work, because people forget it's not the deal the press writes about the deal to do the deal, it's the next day. 30 or 40,000 people are working on stuff that is brand new to them. People are going to lose their jobs. People have consolidate stuff. They're worried. They're nervous. It's, you know, you're literally working seven days a week, and then. But the worst moment was Lee So Bear Stearns was bought, and we thought that might be saving the system, but six months later, Lehman didn't make it. Lehman didn't get bought. Lehman disintegrated, and that caused disruption around the world of payments and systems and money and and, and things shouldn't happen that way, which they did fix, by the way. But even after that, AIG, the largest insurance company, Citi, you know, bank America is one after another. But the Fed finally, and, and we did a lot of stuff, but there was really the Fed at one point put in all these problems. Putting all these programs in place, that by March of oh nine, the markets were hitting all time bottoms. But I knew is, we're getting to the end because, because the programs were going to work, and it was going to release stress in the system. Markets stopped going down. People would take a deep breath, clean up the crap from the past, but, you know, go on and so, but that was a lot of stress. And I do, I think I just do it the same way, which I try to, you know, I this is why I find with stress, okay, the only thing that really satisfies me when I have stress from work is to work, like going to work. I mean, I could get depressed and really stressed out on a Saturday, but if I come to the office in a Saturday or Sunday and I start working on the problems, it immediately goes away from me, because I'm doing something, stuff like that and so but then get away from that. It's just to get your sleep, get your exercise, you know, do something that takes your mind off it for a while, with some stupid TV show or something like that, when you have little successes, even the middle of a crisis, get the people together for a little cocktail party and thank them, yeah, like little things like that, to just relieve it.

David Novak 1:04:28

And you've had so many successes, if you built, you know, JP Morgan Chase into the by far and away, the number one financial institution in the world, and one of the best companies in the world. You know, looking back, what would you say has been your biggest disappointment at JPMorgan Chase, and what did you learn from it?

Jamie Dimon 1:04:49

You know, people would probably point out the whale. You know, we lost billions of dollars this terrible antidote training thing, and I was, of course, heavily criticized, legitimately and. Then, you know. And of course, at one point, someone asked me on an analyst call, is it just a tempest in a teapot? I said, Yes, but at that moment, I didn't know how bad it was. I had been told something which was not accurate. And I remember coming back late one night, I said, I want to see the actual positions, the actual what ifs the actual stuff, reading the stuff. And my heart stopped, but I realized what we had done, and I immediately got on a call with analysts and said, we've lost $2 billion we're gonna lose more. We made a it was barely managed, a bad strategy, barely reported, barely done. It's my fault, and I'm sorry. Is somebody that gotten away wasn't properly reports. I won't go into but I do remember. But again, I don't consider that my worst moment, just it was just terrible. And I told I actually got all the PR people and communications people together, the manager who said, You know what, they're going to crucify me. They're going to crucify our company. I said, forget that. We're going to lose some money. We've got clients around the world. When we wake up tomorrow, we're going to serve our clients around the world. And I remember driving in the next day. I was very early, like 630 when they called me up. Said, Jamie, all the all the TV cameras out and all the newspapers and go into the basement so after you could avoid them, I was okay. And the closer I'm getting to the building, I'm saying, wait a second, why? I'm not going to do that. So I got out of the car, oh, come right up to me, and they say, What are you going to do? You can lose your job? And I said, you know, we're going to fix this problem. I said. I looked up the building. I said, but I want you to know how proud I am of the 7000 people in this building serving their clients around the world every day and the great job they do. And that's how I felt. It wasn't that was like a stupid problem. It wasn't. But I've learned so many lessons. You know, like any look you've been part of it. You know how to run meetings and how to notice politicians, but, but the biggest mistakes are always the same people. When you put the wrong people in the job. You know, that means that you've it takes a while to figure it out. You know, bullshitters are pretty good at they've been bullshitting for 25 years. The people who reports them are going to be hurt. The company won't do a good job. It takes a while to figure out to replace them. And and that's and you get better at that. You just get better than over time, you see the pattern recognition. Are they respected? Are they treated? Are they honest, as opposed to, are they the best chess pounder and the best salesman and and they work their ass off and things which may be important, but that doesn't mean they're a good leader.

David Novak 1:07:28

So the whale was what everybody would go to. Would you look at it? What was your biggest disappointment in it? You know, the whale was an event you knew you could get over it. Did you have one bigger than that? Or was this?

Jamie Dimon 1:07:39

Yeah, there was, I would say there's some people ones. I don't want to mention their names, because I think it's very important you're not shit all over people that I missed. You know, there was one of bank one who you might remember, and I missed it. And I remember my management team coming in, and it was late at night. They said four guys, which I think this is fine, but most people would allow this forum. Said, Jamie, sit down. I said, Okay. They said, We're going to tell you something. Don't say anything. Just listen. I said, Okay. And they proceeded, telling me how this person we had hired ran this part of the business, was a bad guy, a liar, dishonest, you know, did, said things and did things and, and I listened and and I didn't know, and I did, you know, and sometimes you can't tell people. So I said to him, is I hear you where the smoke is fire. Thank you for saying this to me. It's now my problem. And they were right, and and and that. And then there are a couple of ones at the JP Morgan Chase right where I made the decision, I hired that person in bank one or I made the decision, I missed it, or I took too long, you know. And I hate it when I make a change and people say, Thank God you did that. You know, I always say to him, Well, why didn't you let me know earlier? You may be the boss, but, you know, I love reading history, and I love reading some military history. And you see the same thing where there are bad generals,

David Novak 1:08:57

you know, Ron Daniel, who ran McKinsey, always said, David, you said you're going to learn, and you learned this. It sounds like it's your biggest you know. Disappointment is said, you know, the business will always run. Your results will vary, but the thing that will disappoint you the most are the people that you put your trust in, you know. So I think that's basically what you're saying here, you know. I know many people have asked you to run for president. You know, I I even told you once, I remember we have a dinner at some Greek restaurant. I said, I will quit whatever I'm doing right now. I'll be your campaign manager. I'll do whatever you want, but we need you to run for president. You know, what did you What have you learned about yourself that kept that's kept you from jumping into that Briar Patch.

Jamie Dimon 1:09:43

I'm not sure I learned a lot about myself. But look, I do think there are skills that people have that in business world that may translate to the political world, but I think it's a mistake to automatically think that's true. So I think working hard, being authentic, having these skills is true. But. There are also these political skills and, and, you know, I, and you've, you've seen a lot of business people run that fail immediately. And, and, you know, you I may be better than them, but I still don't have, doesn't have all those political skills. That's one. The second is, I think, I literally think you should try to have a warm up before you go for President, you know. And warm up, you know, could be Congress or Senate or governor. You've seen people like learn those skills before you go for the big enchilada. You know, I know the world from this position I have, so I think that's important, but I would have had to start earlier. And I also have this unbelievable, unlike some other people, I have this unbelievable job. You know, I think, you know, my country's very right next to my family, is my country, and this this company. I'm just so proud of what it does for 80,000 Americans, 6000 company American companies around the world, our markets, cities, schools, states, hospitals, the community outreach program. I'm damn proud of it. So I think I add a lot here. I'd be giving them that for kind of a wild goose chase. I tell people, how do I run and won when I was walking into that White House, I'd be waving goodbye to my family for four years. They'd be saying, See you, dad. I'm not sure. I'm sure my wife would have gone with me there. And so I just, and it is subjecting your family to some very tough stuff. And you know, some people are prepared for that. I was unprepared for at the time. And so I would never, I would never rule it out. I mean, I don't like, I don't like making progress to be like you probably I'm not making any problems anyone. If I change my mind, change my mind, but I think it's hard. I'm 68 years old, as you know, I've had a health problem or two, so I just, when you put it together, it just didn't seem like the right thing for me to do. And you've

David Novak 1:11:37

traveled the world, and, you know, JP, Morgan Chase has such global impact as you as you mentioned as you've met global leaders, and you've met the top leaders in the world who, if you had to pick out one person who just impressed you the most, and why

Jamie Dimon 1:11:52

there are several, are terrible, and I'm not going to give you their names. And these may surprise a little bit. Macron, very smart, very tough, says the same things. Public is privately, very complicated. Politics, you could say, made some rights. This is wrong decisions. Has the right vision for France. You know, getting entrepreneurs business, growing stuff like that. The guy Greece was a basket case. The guy who runs Greece, Mr. Caucus has done an unbelievable job. And he did, and he would tell you, basically, it was, I figured out what policies we needed, and then I did the politics. Whereas most politicians do it their way around. It's all about politics, and they try to fit the policies into what they promised, which, you know, policies barely done. Don't work and so, and then a lot of them from history, you know. I mean, I've been reading a lot about Ike Eisenhower, just the confidence of the man he surrounds. All the great people that he ran, that everyone spoke up. There was no game playing. He got rid of all the policies. Were able to deal with all the complexities. And George Marshall, I mean, so I get a lot of inspiration from people not just existing. You This is Grant. I mean, you know, you know, they write him up as a drunkard. He was extraordinary. But he But as President, you know one point the Ku Klux Klan comes back, and I think it was Mississippi. And he, you see this guy, the principled ethics. He said the black people, they weren't called blacks at the time, are citizens of this country, and they're gonna be treated with all the same rights as everybody else. And he said, I think it was Sherman or Sheridan down with troops to remove the governor. There was no prevaricating, there's no game playing, there's no if it's bad. It was terrible politics for for if you wanted to win the southern states. And so a lot of people, Abe Lincoln, Nelson Mandela, that you just learned from watching what they do and how they handled difficult situations, difficult people as you

David Novak 1:13:41

think about, you know, the situation that the world faces today. It's very complicated, you know. I mean, it's a, it's a very scary world we live in today. You know, describe the world you see five to 10 years from now. I mean, you know, you think we're going to be in this for a long, long time. Or, you know, the China relationship, you know, I mean, how do you, how do you see the world? And, you know, there was a time when, you know, the global economy was everything, and China needed us, and we needed China. You know, though, everything seems to be on very shifting sand. How do you look at it? And how should we think about it? It's

Jamie Dimon 1:14:23

it is really complex. And I think the way I look at it, as you create Russia, Ukraine war, it's the aiding abetting of Iran and North Korea, of what's happening in Ukraine is Iran's nuclear program. It's the terrorism in the Middle East against Israel, and then India and then China's part in that kind of a not with it. They're not part of the evil part, but they're aiding and betting it with micro electronics and buying oil and gas and all these various things. It's dangerous. And you're talking about, this is not the economy. I'm worried about. This is the future of freedom and democracy in the world and and you. And the only way to deal with something like this, if you read history, is deal with it. Don't just pray it goes away. It may not go away. You know, when this war started, I told you all day is there. That's almost on three years, you know. And you know, you're talking about Iran being very close to have a nuclear weapon. You know, China is trying to divide the Western world by quite openly, they saying it, you know, well, we don't want the American system to prevail, and we don't want the reserve currency, and we want every country not to be part of the American economic system. And the I think the public should understand that the military alliance we have and the economic alliances are very deeply related, and our national power is based upon our moral power, our economic power in addition to our military power and the moral power is still real, we have the greatest country in the planet, the freedom of speech and freedom of religion and freedom of enterprise. Those freedoms for if you took down our barriers, the immigration 4 billion people move here because they want those freedoms, and then they'd invent companies. And I think Americans underestimate the power of that. Yes, we've had flaws of a country, and we should focus on some of that, but we shouldn't denigrate This is a shining light, a shining city on the hill. And so to conquer these things, you need to make sure America stays strong. So America, when I talk about China, we have all the food, war and energy we need. We have peace in North America and South America. We got the Atlantic in the Pacific, China, our GDP per person is $80,000 theirs is 15. They import 10 million barrels of oil a day. They've got terrible demographics, and their neighborhood is a very complicated area. They're surrounded by people who've been enemies in the past, and they're pissing them all off, not because I think America is done, by the way, but the Philippines, Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, Vietnam, Korea, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Russia. It's a tough part of the world, and they're kind of hemmed in, and so we have the better hand. The question to me, I worry about is we need to play that hand. There's there's no if only American leadership can keep the world free and safe for democracy, only American leadership, and we've got to keep together the military and the Economic Alliance, because the economic Battlefield, and these are directly related, is about national security, like, you know, where do we get our penicillin from, and where do we get our graphite from, and where do we get our rare earths from, and stuff like that. But it's also about unfair economic competition, because that becomes bigger thy neighbor. And you know, you have Europe in the very tough spot now, because they have very high energy costs, we have very low energy costs. So it makes it very hard for the industry. And then China is, you know, can sink their car companies. So, you know, you have a very complex situation. So, you know, my view is, build America. Remind start with our own civics. You know, we owe our country why it's so important what freedom and democracy about, build our economy, and at the economic powers the root all those things, it allows you to do all the other things and then have a very sophisticated role about how we're going to maintain American leadership. But for America, we're not doing it, you know, out of the just the goodness of our hearts. And I also think it needs to be more real power. Be more real politic. You know, we lecture our and I go all around the world, as you did, you know, and we're constantly lecturing people about their labor laws and their climate and their all these things. And I'm not against furthering human rights, but it, but it should be subordinated. So it needs to be subordinated to national security interests and and, you know, real politic is that great quote, When Stalin was telling FDR and Churchill at Yalta, I think, or Potsdam, and he was yelta, that he wanted to do something, and FDR said, Mr. President, the the pope wouldn't agree with that. And Stalin leaned forward and said, exactly, how many divisions does the pope have, you know, and that's the game we're in. And we do these dumbest things in the name of good that actually make us weaker and make our allies weaker. And so we have to be very thoughtful. And you know, I'll be reaching out to the new administration, and that we reached out to the old administration. We've hired national security experts to help us help our clients, and then, you know, a little bit of a mea culpa. We all made a mistake. And this isn't, it should be acknowledged. Isn't something you have to we have to whip ourselves about. We should have, all of us should have been a little more thoughtful about China, going back about 10 years. And, you know, at one point they entered WTO in 2000 but they were starting to abuse it by 2012 you know. And we should have been more thoughtful than they were really thinking it through. And we were just kind of happy, go lucky. We, all of us, you know. And so is the government, you know, so, but now is the time to say, Okay, no, they can't be merchants. They can't, you know, beggar thy neighbor, economically, they can't do certain things they're doing, we have the better hands. I'm not telling Americans, you know, worry about I'm saying just, let's just make sure we build a really strong company. Let's make sure we have unparalleled military strength that is unquestioned, because the best way to avoid a war is to be strong. I can borrow the thing so and so. So I just. We got to fight for that America and remind ourselves and educate our kids and educate people why it's important educate people the interlinks between those things. You

David Novak 1:20:08

know, it's, you know, we've covered a lot of fronts here, and it's been fun, you know, having this conversation. I want to have some more with my lightning round of questions. And are you ready for this? I'm ready three words that best describe you, tenacious,

Jamie Dimon 1:20:22

relentless, tenacious and relentless, like I love to learn all the time, if

David Novak 1:20:28

you could be one person for a day besides yourself, who would it be? Hey, Blinken, what's your biggest pet peeve, bureaucracy? Who would play you in a movie? Well,

Jamie Dimon 1:20:36

my wife would want Harrison Ford or George Clooney, but they are obviously better looking than

David Novak 1:20:42

I am. What's a Greek delicacy everyone should try musaka. The last time you put on boxing gloves and punched someone? Oh god,

Jamie Dimon 1:20:50

that was 15 years ago.

David Novak 1:20:54

Your favorite memory from the US Open Tennis Tournament opening

Jamie Dimon 1:20:57

a business week one day, and seeing Steffi Graf serving in a picture. And then I look really closely what was behind her. I could see my little daughter, who's eight years old, looking at her. That was the best moment for me and my daughters. My granddaughters have been, you know, that big teletrons, whatever they've been on that a couple of times when they're watching the T the you I try to take them every year. What's

David Novak 1:21:20

the one thing you do just for you, read history, your most prized possession, my family. If I turned the radio onto your car, what would I hear? Just music. You know, just general music. What's something about you? A few people would know I'm actually a pushover, and I'm

Jamie Dimon 1:21:33

actually quite easy.

David Novak 1:21:36

I think that might be just a little bit of a

Jamie Dimon 1:21:40

if you ask all my family members, who's the easiest one when it comes to where you eat, where you travel, what you do when you get up, they would say, Dad, I just wanna do whatever makes me happy.

David Novak 1:21:49

What's one of your daily rituals? Something that you'd ever miss, reading the papers in the morning? All right, well, we're out of the lightning round, and I just got a few more questions, and we'll wrap this up. Okay, I got to ask you, tell us the story of what it was like when you had your first child.

Jamie Dimon 1:22:04

Well, that's, you know, I think for everyone, that's like an unforgettable experience. And and I remember my wife had some complication of that, so it was a cesarean. So she came out looking good, but I remember holding her, my little daughter, with a little teeny rib cage. And then she stretched, no and just holding this little stretching baby. And then she yawned and hiccup, which she did quite a bit. And holding a new life in your hands is extraordinary.

David Novak 1:22:33

You know, you now have this incredible family with three daughters and seven grandchildren, and you've now got a two year old grandson. You have all these daughters, and what was it like when you finally got the grandson? Well,

Jamie Dimon 1:22:48

first of all, I love I have two wonderful son in laws, and you have a daughter, you probably worried, like I did early, like, what if you don't like the son in laws? Like, what do they get married? And you know, I adore these kids. They're both wonderful fathers and husbands and son in laws, and they're delightful to be with. We all travel together. We like their families, so we're like one happy go lucky when we fly out. There was a boy. I mean, I didn't see hard even to contemplate it for us, because I never had a baby boy and so but he's quite I put them in quite a pampered category, you know, all 60 other kids, you know, pick them up and carry them around and play with them. And I don't think he has any idea he's gonna have to learn to grow up with. I mean, I could imagine all those girls, you know, whenever he brings home a girlfriend, eventually they're gonna all want to vet the girlfriend,

David Novak 1:23:41

I bet so, you know, you and I both had our health issues, and you've, you've Russ, you've struggled with cancer. And you know, how is that? You know, how much did that really change you or or did it, it

Jamie Dimon 1:23:55

did, you know, I think it changed me over time. I don't think you realize immediately, but it does, you know. But as you know, when someone says you have cancer, your life changes. And and I tell a lot of people, everyone knows they're going to die, but that when they say that, all of a sudden, it's like in your face, and you have to contemplate dying all the time, until even now you're a survivor, but all the time until they say you're in remission. And of course, you know radiation and chemo is can be absolutely devastating. And I remember I wouldn't go tell my parents. I told my wife, you have to tell them, because I didn't want to tell my parents I may die before them. And so the thing that changed is it does make you live a little more deliberately about how you run your life and what you do and how you spend your time. It wasn't like I was gonna change. I love working. I love my country. It didn't change that, but it did change how you deal with certain people and certain issues and and I think because of that, when I had the second health issue, I was being wheeled into the surgery, and I knew, I knew was maybe not even 5050, I would survive, that I didn't. Have any regrets, because the ones I might have had, I actually fixed the first time around.

Unknown Speaker 1:25:06

You know, a mutual

David Novak 1:25:07

friend of ours, you know, it's the late head of Goldman Sachs, John Weinberg. He had this line, which I love. He said, you either grow or you swell. You know, how do you manage not getting the big head. I mean, I just think of what you run and everything you've accomplished, and this

Jamie Dimon 1:25:28

is my belief, because I've and I always quote him, too, in that, because that when people get the big job, it's shocking, sometimes how they act, and all of us who get the big job is actually more creates more humility, because how little you know about certain things and yet you're responsible for them, but other people. But I think, I think it is, it's how you're grounded, and that grounding comes from your whole life experience it. But it's the insecurity. It's the insecure people who, when they get that big job, they it makes them so insecure that the way they fix it is by controlling the meetings, by having friends of Bill, by having friends of this by everyone knows is what they want. They never want to be embarrassed. They never want to look bad. They're the ones who won't go on the on some of these trips, because they're afraid of, you know, being criticized and and you see these traits, and you see them with you see that doesn't be the CEO of a company. Could be the CEO of a division, and other people. There's none of that, you know, I tell people. And you know how insecure the your your listeners may understand that when you run a company. So make believe. I'm running a trading desk that does mortgages, and if I wanted to do more, I have to call that guy runs that he knows more about than I know or anybody else. I say, hey, what about this? What about that? Why don't we do this? But maybe he gets promoted, and now he's running six divisions, mortgages and credit and equities and stuff like that. Well, all of a sudden he's an expert in one, and he's learning five, and then he gets promoted again. Okay, now he's an expert in six, and he's learning 30. And so the higher you get, the more insecurity it breeds, which is why I think that that people, some people, they turn inward, they get scared, they block it, they they have they cover up their anxiety. And other people, they're more like, they realize they don't know that stuff, and they reach out for help, and they have that curiosity and recognition and all those things about heart and curiosity. But I think it's how you're grounded. I don't think, I don't think it's just it happens.

David Novak 1:27:18

Yeah, you know. And you know, one of the things about you, Jamie, is you've been in position for a long time at JP, Morgan Chase. And you know, many would call you like the John Wooden of financial expertise, coaching, whatever I mean, you are the John Wooden I mean. And you know, it was very difficult when John Wooden retired to ever replace John Wooden. I mean, how do you, how do you think about replacing your, your yourself, and do you give yourself high marks on your process that you have for that?

Jamie Dimon 1:27:57

I Yes, I so far, you know, obviously the decision is the most important. But the board is fully engaged that my board knows everybody. They see them freely. They take them out, so there's no blockage of those folks. We have the same list everyone has about, you know, you know, all the skills you need and stuff like that. But at the end of the day, and, you know, I put character and culture as a, you know, that's a sine qua non. Heart curiosity. Work at drive grit. You better have a little bit of grit. Is this basket of things that make up a human being. It's not one thing, and we have people of great skills across the board. And I think the board believes that, and I believe I took the board through successful succession planning, unsuccessful session planning, so what worked and what didn't work. Several people my board have been through it, so they've, you know, told the board how they approached and stuff like that. So we're doing it pretty systemically, and we think we've got people who've got that full broad range of capabilities. I don't like it when someone says, you know, what are you looking for a technologist or a marketing person? No, no, you're looking for that whole set of stuff that they carry the culture, they got the energy they bring people with them. They don't have to be perfect at any one thing, but they have to have that spectrum of stuff where people actually want to work at the company. They get the best out of the other people. And I think we have many people can do that. You know,

David Novak 1:29:16

last question here, if you could give one piece of advice to any leader, what would it be?

Jamie Dimon 1:29:24

I would go back to make sure you have heart and curiosity and give a damn and understand that you don't know it all and you're not even the expert anymore. Jamie,

David Novak 1:29:33

I want to thank you for all this time, and I want to thank you for your friendship. You're always there. You're always there. I mean, you know, we we, you know, we don't get together all the time, but when we do, we pick up from where we last left, each other. And you know, last year, my wife passed away in February, you and Judy were were there, and you're there for people. You. And when they need them most. And I thank you for being that kind of friend for me, you're an amazing guy, and I'm blessed to have you as a friend, David, you've

Jamie Dimon 1:30:10

always been there for me also, and both you and I love you, and it's great spending some time with you.

David Novak 1:30:17

Yeah. Thank you very much, buddy. Appreciate it. You.

You know, there's just nobody like Jamie Dimon. He's my friend, and I know I'm biased, but I believe he's one of the best business leaders of our time, and I can tell you, he is the absolute real deal. He doesn't just talk a big game about giving a damn and having heart and grit. I've seen it close up and personal by myself, and he is not afraid to roll up his sleeves and dive into the work, no matter how hard that work may be. And I know you picked up on this, but Jamie has no patience for the BS and bureaucracy that might get in the way of the work. That's a powerful mindset, and one we need to all learn from. So I got a question for you. What's getting in the way of the work that's really going to move your organization forward? Is it too much bureaucracy, internal politics, endless. Strategic this week. Be on the lookout for it and push back against it, because if you want to get results, you've got to get past those distractions and do the real work of running your business. So do you want to know how leaders lead? What we learned today is the great leaders get to work. Coming up next on how leaders lead is Harris Barton. He's the founder and managing director of H Barton Asset Management and a three time Super Bowl champion with the 40 Niners playing alongside Grace like Joe Montana and Jerry Rice and Steve Young, you

Harris Barton 1:31:46

don't have all the answers. I promise you don't have all this, but there's somebody out there that has a bunch of the answers, and you should start listening.

David Novak 1:31:53

So be sure to come back again next week to hear our entire conversation. Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of how leaders lead where every Thursday, you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world. I make it a point to give you something simple on each episode that you can apply to your business, so that you will become the best leader you can be.

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